I think that they are as sweet as honeycrisp but I don't think they have the same crispy crunch that honeycrisp does. My zestrar and honeycrisp are both growing at the same pace. Kind of slow, but I am also 2.5 zones colder than you as well.

Zestar has similar crispness as Honeycrisp (giant cells that break instead of part while you chew) and is much easier to grow as it performs here in southern NY. I can't remember if it is as crunchy or just similarly so.

By easier, I mean it isn't as likely to get black rot (if that's the rot I so often see on Honeycrisp) and they don't drop early and become tasteless if it's too hot and humid around ripening time.

Zestar! trees are easy to grow. They maintain a slender form, don't seem to have any particular disease problems, and produce apples I consider to be better than Honeycrisp. They have a bit more intensity of flavor, sweet with an acid tang. We are enjoying them right now here in SE PA. They are not as crisp as HCrisp, and the flesh seems to melt as you chew. With its apparent merits, I decided to plant 25 of them on our new farming enterprise of 4 acres. Very nice apples that are easy to grow. Ted

Grandpa's has a sale on them.

By the way, I was wrong about them having similar crispness to Honeycrisp and Ted pretty much nailed it with his description. My memory failed me, which I realized when eating them last summer, but I knew it was a really nice apple that is much less fussy than Honeycrisp.