A week ago I had the opportunity to take a tour of Dave Easton's apple orchard at Mariri near Motueka in the South Island of New Zealand.
David Easton is a passionate 3rd generation apple grower. He and his wife Maryanne have grown the business from a small 6 ha apple orchard on the Moutere hills area to today’s orchard of 40 hectares, with the biggest orchard situated in the heart of the Waimea plains. Current production is around 120000 cartons for various world markets.
In 1990 David found two red apples growing on a Braeburn branch, on their orchard on the Moutere Hills area in Nelson. From this original branch all the eve Red Braeburn have been produced. Its natural characteristics and the focus on correct production by the Heartland grower group have enabled eve to be a stand out consumer product.
Varieties grown are:
Royal Gala 30%,
Braeburn 20%,
Fuji 2%,
New Zealand Beauty 2%,
Tentation 1%
Eve (Mariri Red) 45%.
Many new varieties are under trial on the orchards including Pinova, Honeycrisp, Starlady, Moonglo and yet to be named varieties with only numbers.
Easton Apples Ltd. are fully EurepGap accredited in 2003. David is a shareholder in Compass Fruit which is fully BRC (British Retailers Consortium) accredited.
As a big fan of NZ apples it was great to visit the origin of the best apple in the world the "eve" or mariri red!
I often purchase these apples from my local supermarket via the marketing brand "Yummy"
It was a revelation to see the eve apples growing on the tree. The first thing that struck me was the colour and size of the fruit! Much more vibrant colour on the tree and the fruit was huge compared to that which I get in the supermarket. It was explained to me that this is the difference between tree ripened fruit and fruit ripened in cool stores.
The taste of the eve apple from the tree was amazing! Crisp, fruity, juicy and just far better than what I had tasted before!
Visiting the orchard was a great opportunity as I found out that the Eve apple was invented by the Eastons at their orchard. CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS.
I even got to see the original tree that eve started on! What an opportunity.
Thanks to the visit I have a greater understanding of the eve apple, its origins, and where it is grown.
My quandary is now how to obtain tree ripened fruit rather than cool store ripened apples?
All this talk or eve apples has made me hungry. Time for a tree ripened eve apple I think! Yes that was another advantage of visiting the orchard! I got a bag of tree ripened apples to take away with me.
Recent Comments