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Fragrant Pears
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Posted by tructi 6/7 (My Page) on Sun, Apr 22, 07 at 8:20
| I just tasted a fragrant pear at the local asian supermarket and it's very good. Crisp and juicy and not too sweet. Similar to asian pear w/o the "butterscocth" taste. I'm wondering if anyone sells trees for planting. I've read that they were just recently allowed to sell the US from China. Thanks!!
Tim |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| Tim, I guess you are talking about a Chinese pear? They are a form of asian pear. Some asian pears have that butterscotch taste and some don't, it depends on the variety. I don't know any of the Chinese types having any butterscotch in their flavor. Two good chinese pears are Tsu Li and Ya Li. Several nurseries sell Chinese pears, I think One Green World and Raintree for example. Plus many other places I can't think of right now. Scott |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| Someone asked about these on another forum, and I found an article that David Karp wrote for the New York Times last November. ("From Silk Road to Supermarket, China's Fragrant Pears.") A NYT subscription is required to read the full text on-line, but here are a few excerpts: "The botanical identity of fragrant pears has long been unclear, and Chinese trade documents describe them as resembling the European species. In a study published in 2001, however, scientists analyzed the variety's molecular markers and determined that it is a complex hybrid of the two main European and Asian species, along with Pyrus armeniacifolia, a little-known Xianjing species with small fruits and leaves similar to apricot foliage." Karp seems to like these pears much better than common Chinese pears like "Ya Li" (which he feels is "mediocre" in quality). Describing the flavor of these newly available fruits, he writes: "The flavor is delicate, and different from that of most Asian pears, with a whiff of the "pear ester", ethyl decadienoate, which gives European varieties their characteristic aroma." So it sounds like this new type of pear is definitely worthwhile, and also rather unlike any of the cultivars currently grown in the U.S. (A "crunchy when ripe" pear with the European pear aroma.) Unfortunately, I don't think that trees of this variety can currently be purchased in the U.S. (The Karp article does mention that one commercial grower obtained scionwood of this variety from China's Xinjiang Province a few years ago, and that he plans to start propagating more trees ... but I think that he is interesting in propagating trees for his own orchards, not in selling the plants.) |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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They are in all the Chinese fruit markets here in NYC. Cost is about $1.25 a lb. They are crisp, sweet and juicy, but not much in the way of fragrance. I think Housi is better.
All the boxes are from China, writing is in Chinese and English. The provence they come from is listed, I just cant remember how to spell it. I will plant a few seeds in two weeks. I have some in the crisper for a 3 weeks now. I an hoping 5 weeks is enough stratification. |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| I've got about 20 seedlings growing and I need to think of where to plant them all. :) How many years would it probably take to bear fruit? |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| Sounds interesting - I haven't seen these pears here but will look. Richard, I have a couple dozen apple seedlings that I grafted to a couple trees, so I am growing many varieties in a small space and will also hopefully get fruit a bit sooner. Burbank was well-known for employing this technique. With pears you could use quince as the stock and that would certainly speed up the time to fruit. Asians are also thankfully much faster to fruit than the Europeans. I'm not sure how compatible they are with quince, though. The children will perhaps be quite different since the pollinator could well be a normal asian pear. Scott |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| Hey here is a longer article.. maybe this is what you read Ashok. |
Here is a link that might be useful: More on fragrant pears
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| Scott, Yes, that's the article. It's quite an interesting read. Karp's pieces are always entertaining and informative. |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| I just tried my first fragrant pear, my wife scored a dozen for me at the local asian grocery. Like TWM I would not call them super fragrant, but I am going to let them ripen some more to see if they improve. BTW, my guess is these seeds are already fully stratified since the pears must have been in cold storage since last summer. I am saving the seeds in case they improve after ripening; they are not yet in my mind worth trying to grow myself. Scott |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| Scott, the ones I get have green crisp stems, giving the impression they were recently picked. If I did not have lots of space, I would not plant them either. I also want try taking material from a seedling grown one season, and grafting it on a mature tree to see how long it will take to fruit. |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| TWM, if you go to the blog I linked above you will find that the harvest occurs in September - there are pictures of it. My stems are also green so I can only think that they must stay green for 6 months. I believe that all of these pears are grown in the same part of China. Scott |
RE: Fragrant Pears
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| The Fragrant pears, as crisp as Asian pears but juicy and sweet like more familiar varieties, originated in far western China in the Xinjiang region. The area accounts for only 3 percent of China��s pear crop, but the Fragrant variety, which its farmers have cultivated for 1,300 years, is esteemed as the country��s finest, and fetches twice the price of other pears there. I am from China and export fragrant pears and apples. I hope to find importers. My Email and MSN is benvictory@hotmail.com. Mobile number is +86 133 5696 9157. |
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