Being new to the fig world, I am in the dark, hoping someone can shed some light on the subject.

What, if any, are the differences between dark figs and light figs in flavor, texture, productivity, culture, et cetera?

Every fig is different: sweetness, flavor, size, color, skin thickness, shape, and any other characteristic you want to name.

Dale
one is like hamburger and the other like a fine aged steak mostly.
Sometimes the hamburger one may taste like a less expensive cut of steak as there are the exceptions.

I feel like interior color is more telling.  It's a personal opinion.

Thank you all. This is helpful.

does anyone know the taste difference between paradiso gene, paradiso bronze, and paradiso nero?

i have paradiso gene and it tastes like watermelon, and nicely sweet. just wondering what others taste like.

pete

I have read in a couple places that dark figs are more prone to being eaten by birds, and light/green figs are left alone.

When I grow lettuce however, the opposite is true - the birds peck at the green leaves and leave the red ones alone. Go figure.

My mother-in-law's figs are as light as they get and the birds LOVE them.

I have both & I like the (figgy) taste of  them all.
However, my eyes seem to act bigger than my mouth.
They see the darker colored skin and/or pulp more mouth appealing....

I laugh.....all subjective, abstractions, and all the tasting relies on how the fig looks as it's being placed into the mouth.  Gorgi nailed it!

Anyone ever do a BLIND taste test and try to identify  fig varieties by taste only?  I doubt that the results would be predictable.   I'll bet 90% of the figs would taste the same, and you'd be hard pressed, by taste alone, to pick the dark figs from the light figs.  It is fun to speculate though.
The taste of a fig starts with your imagination. and expectations.

Frank

I try not to judge a book by its cover, Figs are the same way. The ugliest looking figs sometimes have excellent flavor, and sometimes large and pretty looking figs taste bad.
Some dark skin figs have a strong sweet and nutty flavor, and some white skinned figs have a bland taste. It ranges greatly from one variety to the other and the climate it has been grown.

So I am gettting the sense that figs are like coffee and tobacco and probably other things in that the soil and climate can make a great difference on the same variety. While there is certainly a great deal of subjectivity, the fact that there are figs that appeal to a large section of the (discering) population should tell us something. Thanks all.