Berries in The Wall Street Journal

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal published an article on a new line of Driscoll berries called "Driscoll's Sweetest Batch".  Apparently like many things in life when breading berries one cannot have everything:  shelf life, yield, and flavor -- pick (slight pun) two.  As an experiment the company relaxed the yield requirements and set its berry breeders off to work.

 

It seems they were successful because the result was Driscoll's Sweetest Batch.  Since I saw the article I'd been keeping an eye out to try the new berries.  I was able to score a box of blueberries in my most recent Whole Foods order.  Sweetest Batch are almost always out of stock.  I'd say the berries live up to the hype.  After finishing a generous bowl, I can report most of the population were uncommonly sweet, and had the taste of blueberries.  A portion were somewhat sour, as one might expect from Driscoll, the company everyone loves to hate.

 

From The Wall Street Journal article I also learned that new berry varieties are being introduced all the time, as old varieties are supplanted.

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Good article.   I grew up in "Driscoll country" before it was that.    IMHO, berries need to be warm from the field, picked "a point" and before they reach that tempting but misleading deep red.    As in all fruit, to be perfect a berry needs to have a perfect balance of sugar and acid.   Simply being sweet, or worse sweetest, can be a recipe for disappointment, unless you've never had a really proper berry, or peach or apricot or cherry.

[ElsieD]

Are The Sweetest blueberries only?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Are The Sweetest blueberries only?

 

No, but so far blueberries are the only berries I've found to buy.