The Next Honeycrisp Cross - Aura

In this newsletter, I will be sharing about the new Aura apple that I just got to taste for the very first time.

Jan 16, 2025

So you know that list of apples that was part of my podcast episode - What Apples I Want to Eat in 2025. Well it took less than 2 weeks into the year to start crossing apples off that list.

This past week, we were taking a U-haul trailer back for my mother in law and I spotted a new to me grocery store on the way. So we had to stop in on the way back and I was floored when I saw this display:

These apples are in short supply as they are a new variety so I was super lucky to find them. This was a Market of Choice store in West Linn, Oregon, not too far from Portland. You better believe I rushed to the nearest produce bags to get some Aura apples in my cart.

What are my initial thoughts of this apple: The apple is more sweet than tart, but is very well balanced in that department. It’s juicy and refreshing. The skin isn’t too thick. My mother in law often peels her apples and when she tasted this one she said didn’t mind the skin. Overall, I believe we have a winner here.

At the same time I got some Opal apples because I wanted to do a comparison between two different yellow apples in the grocery store. I will share my thoughts next week on which apple I think is better.

Here is a fun fact about this apple. When they were first learning to grow them, they harvested them and then the next year it was a poor harvest. It turns out that the buds that will form next year’s apples are very close to the current year’s fruit so they were accidentally being removed/damaged. These kind of things show all the little things that go into bringing a new apple variety forth and the mistakes that are made along the way. That is why it often takes not years, but decades for new apples to hit the stores.

I have added Aura to a couple of lists on my blog”