Smitten Apple Review

"The Curb Stomp of Apples"

42
Horse Food
Smitten Apple

The curb stomp of apples, this concrete product of a masochistic breeder in New Zealand is so hard that eating it is quite a lot like biting into a rock. The witch-curse they call a tagline for this apple is “Once bitten, forever smitten”, which reads like a warning label for an impending zombie horde attack, is an appropriate motif for an apple that tastes like the guts of an undead corpse. Avoid this mealy rock-fruit at all costs, for the only person Smitten with this apple will be your local orthodontist.

Taste
Crispness
Skin
Flesh
Juiciness
Density
Beauty
Branding / Consistency
Cost / Availability

- FLAVOR PROFILE -

SWEETNESS

2/5

Red Apple Icon
2/5

TARTNESS

1/5

Red Apple Icon
1/5

INTENSITY

1/5

Red Apple Icon
1/5
SMITTEN APPLE BIO

PARENTAGE

Gala x Braeburn

ORIGIN

New Zealand

YEAR

2011

AVAILABILITY

Late Spring – Early Winter

BEST USES

Basket Visual

28 thoughts on “Smitten Apple Review”

  1. If you can’t bite into the apple try cutting it into quarters. The Smitten apple is absolutely beautiful, juicy, sweet and yes crisp but not hard. Well done to the Kiwis who developed it.

  2. Smitten is one of the tastiest apples in the world, with great crisp texture and juice content. I buy them whenever I see them. I do not understand this review at all. Maybe he got one that wasn’t ripe. If you core them first, you will not notice any hardness.

    1. Have been looking for this Apple for years since I first tasted one. The best ever! Why they discontinued here I’ll never know. Love love love them. Best ever!!!!

  3. I fell in love with apples all over again when I tasted my very first Smitten. Now, all other apples through the season must be ranked against the Smitten as the best.

  4. Wow! What a strange review. I love Smitten and anticipate their arrival in my store here in Oregon USA every autumn. Their window of availability always seems short so I feast while I can. Great Apple.

  5. Makes me wonder that the reviewer is only baiting Smitten lovers to write about it’s wonderfulness. I’ve had only one, but I’d get it again if I couldn’t get Winesaps.

  6. I seen these at Kwik Trip today, 12 for 6.49. I thought i would take a chance and holy cow. I just tried them. Never have i ate 2 apples back to back, but i just did. That’s how good the 1st one was. We have Honey Crisp apples here fresh off the tree at the Applefest,..and the Smitten have a flavor all their own, and are just as good as Honey Crisp, if not better. Will be buying them again as soon as i’m out. Never heard of Smitten Apples before..!

  7. The reviewer must be “off his noggin”. This apple is everything he says it is not. It is juicy, not hard at all and very flavorful. If this reviewer thinks he is an expert on the subject of apples then he needs to find a new profession.

  8. When the Smitten Apple was first introduced, the apples in the store actually came from New Zealand and they were perfectly ripe and delicious! Now the ones I am finding here in the Midwest are grown in the U. S. (usually Washington state). They are half green, picked and shipped way too early, and they taste awful. Another example of the U.S. growers ruining a good thing by rushing it to market.

  9. Bought a few smitten apples the other week to try. I made sure to try a few before making judgement (in case I just got a bad one). It was edible, nothing special…. why settle for that when there are better options?. Unsure whether this is the “breed standard” but my smitten apples were small compared to other breeds….this may be convenient for lunch boxes, but I felt underwhelmed, finishing it in so few bites 🙁

  10. What??? I’ve tried every variety, and this is my absolute favorite apple. Never had a soft one – always crunchy (crisp, not rock hard) and incredibly tasty. One commenter suggested US grown Smitten may be inferior to NZ, that has not been my experience. I’ve eaten hundreds and have never been disappointed.

  11. I LOVE this apple! I stopped eating uncooked apples because all I ever got were mealy textured apples. I ate one and the flavor is sweet and a little tart, very crunchy! YUM! My favorite now!

  12. It is the very first time I have tried Smitten and I have to say it is the best apple I have ever tasted, I live in Herefordshire U.K. which is apple growing country. I am 80 years old and I think I know a good apple.

  13. This is by far my favourite apple. If I see it, I buy it and will throw out other apples I have to make way for them. I think this is a troll review.

  14. I rate this apple high. Because it is so dense, it is satisfying. There are a few apples at the top of my list, but they will need to move over for the Smitten.

  15. I currently have this apple in front of me and took one bite and immediately got sad. My bite is exactly like the writer’s post. Definitely green and red streaks and fairly large in size. The bag writes that it’s grown in the US, so we now know why it tastes like marginally sweet sand.

  16. Apple lover here. Been searching for the best apple for years as many commenting here have. This is hands-down the best eating apple I’ve ever found with a perfect balance of sweetness, tang and crunch. Hard to understand what happened with this review. Maybe someone picked them green? It is a fantastic variety.

  17. This apple isn’t in stores where I live on Northeast coast USA. The only place I’ve ever found it is a couple rows off to the side on the perimeter of a pick-your-own orchard. They just seem to have been planted there to fill the space and not a lot of people walk down there — but they’re missing out.

    Smitten are incredibly sweet and juicy apples, with a strong but mellow honey aftertaste. They are crunchy and juicy like a honeycrisp, but with thinner skin you barely notice when you bite, and the juice is not “watery” but super sweet and almost very lightly spiced. There is definitely no hardness like this site mentions. They aren’t as complex as many apples, and they’re missing some acidity I expect from a honeycrisp, cosmic crisp, or koru (my three supermarket favorites). They have flesh the color of butter, and honestly, their skin is a bit pale and I see why people walk right by them because they’re smaller and narrower than a “perfect” large showy apple variety. Definitely not too pretty.

    But I found I tore through three of them on my wander around the orchard and kind of wanted to eat one more. I went back to add more to my bag.

    Now every year I head to the orchard in early September and enjoy smitten apples until I get kind of sick of them. I look forward to them at the end of summer. They even hold up alright in apple crisp or a pie.

  18. I disagree. The Smitten apples I had were fantastic, grown in America and wrote not as hard as the Envy apple that I am eating right now. The bad publicity , however, has made this apple dissappear from store shelves.

  19. Smitten apple is, Ok. Definitely at the higher end of good apples. But. I think there is Nothing like a Bramley Apple for sauce, pies, baked apples etc. Also a great tree for kids to climb, unlike other apple trees that are more fragile. A very large fruit, quite spectacular. But not suitable for eating uncooked: very sharp, extremely strong apple flavour!

  20. Stephen Nazigian

    I just tried Smittens for the first time today, and they are the best-tasting apples I can remember. They are sweet and flavorful with an excellent texture. Right from his first words, the reviewer is all wrong about these apples. I’ve had hard New York state apples, and Smittens are nothing like that. They have just the right amount of resistance to the teeth, and they are delicious! Succulent, not the least bit dry. I am still waiting to see a commenter that agrees with the review!

  21. Someone must have mixed up the labels at the reviewers grocer. What they’re describing isn’t a smitten apple. They are crisp, sweet, and juicy and yeah, like another commenter said it’s one of the few apples where I’ll eat multiple in a row. The reason for me being here at all was because I was searching the web for information on why they’re out of stock.
    I should say though, I’m in New Zealand. It wouldn’t surprise me if US growers are making a total hash of their produce.

  22. I am reminded, as I lean back in my rocker, chewing a wad of Eldelflower blossoms, that this might be that elusive flavor of the “Smitten” apple. Yes ! I am sure of it ! I have one on hand and so I retrieve it. Its about the same hardness as a fresh Red Delicious.So slicing it open it looks ,well it looks as if it was opened up about an hour previously ! Mmm. Onto the eating – Strange flesh, but eating it all was no problem. In fact I quite liked it. Not as juicy or tart or extremely sweet. It’s a big apple and if they ever have a contest as to who can chuck an apple the furthest, I will bet $ on this. It EVEN has finger grooves it it !

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *