i have been on this forum for less than a year. i have seen some great pictures of riped figs. however, very rarely i have seen any update on the taste of the fig.

wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of scale to let members know what it tasted like?

i saw in someone's post sometime ago with sweetness, fig test, other fruit taste. juicy.. and so on. this might give better idea to the members what fig to get. i mean, i wish i have room for every fig i see on the forum, but spaces are premium around here..

pete

I like to eat fish, my wife hates it. Point being that we don't all share the same taste. I do understand your dilemma and I feel your pain as I too have very limited space and would like to try about 50 more varieties. It is painful for me to cull out any unproductive trees too as I keep thinking they can improve, but there seems to be no way around trial and error. That is why it is so important for me to belong to this forum and learn from the experience of others, especially if they are in my area.

"especially if they are in my area.".
BLB Pointed something very important.
Some cultivars will be excellent in some climates pockets and in others.will be only average.
We do not have to rate a fig cultivar bad just because it can't cope with our particular local weather vagaries.
If it will be the case,like that,then 90 percent of my fig cultivars failed to ripe good fruits in the month of August this year, because of the unprecedented amount of rain.
Same cultivars produced excellent fruits in 2007,my best year as climatic condition,here in Willingboro NJ.
Should I discard them all?.
I do not think so.

Taste scale is simple. There is Black Madeira which is a 10, Brown Turkey which is a zero, and everything else is in between.

What's your scale for green I know mine. I wanna know what you think Barry and Jon

Well, my JH Adriatic just totally destroyed my flavor scale last week.

Prior to eating that fig, I was typically leaving notes on the following:

- richness
- sweetness
- juiciness
- figgyness

I rated on a scale of 1-10.  Like ....

My normal Brown Turkey has a taste profile something like:

Juicy: 5
Sweet: 7
Figgy: 1
Rich: 0

Where a typical Celeste in my area is more like:

Juicy: 6
Sweet: 9
Figgy: 3  (or 5 when dried)
Rich: 2  (or 4 when dried)

Then there is the JH Adriatic I ate the other day and was raving about.  That was like....


Juicy: 6
Sweet: 8
Figgy: 2
Rich: 0

Now, here is the rub with using scales like this:  Using this scale, Celeste looks like a better or more promising fig than JH Adriatic, but let me tell you - I would trade a hundred Celeste for one more tast of a JH Adriatic. 

Also note that the BT and the JH Adriatic are literally almost the same numbers.  My BT figs are watery pieces of crap with no flavor.  The JH Adriatic on the other hand is one of the better figs I've ever tasted in my life.  It was sweet like candy honey on the front side, and after about two chews, I got a burst of jammy berry flavor that I've honestly never had in a fig before.

I am telling you because of this:

If you choose to use a scale like this, it's good to get a general view of the traits of a fig, but it gives you ZERO clue about the actual taste experience.  Taste is a very personal thing, but I would recommend mentioning any complex flavors within the fig you ate (berry, custard, honey, etc.) since many figs have these flavors.  If you can't "remember" flavors the way others do, then it may be tough for you to give notes like that.  I'm one of those weirdos who can do blindfold taste tests of common ingredients and know what they are, so I feel like I have an easy time with it.

PS -

See fig links 293 and 899 here:  http://figs4fun.com/Fig_Links.html

Oh and I have this spreadsheet at home which I ripped from some taste test in California I think - I thought it was in the links section but I don't see it.  This was a panel of people commenting on several varieties.

i fully understand that everyone has different taste. and that's a good thing. life would be rather boring if everyone had same taste. but what the simple chart like what jason posted tells me, at least, is that some figs in general has higher taste scale. with additional note, it gives better description to go further on. it's not an absolute scale, but a reference point for people to look at and see what their experience is like compare to the chart or the post.

it's just a thought i had.

pete

Look at the scale as the reviews we get from film critics, some critics reflect our preferences better than others and we learn which ones those are and give their recommendations greater weight. Ultimately, WE make the final decision.

I like how Ray Givan puts it, "it's got a certain something that's really nice"

See this video starting around 1:20 -

Celt to be honest I don't believe I have tasted enough different green figs to give an opinion. I can say for this year with what I have had so far that my Orphan is very good, but then I am not as discriminating as some others who have had years of fig tasting and many more varieties to go by than I have. 

here is the link to rest of table jason posted.

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=fig+taste+scale&fr=yfp-t-366&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=fig+taste+scale&d=4555418684031915&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=6ac8a222,7a09f154&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=ABTJPuGbaqk57mWf71XNWA--

once you are there, you can go to http://www.hawaiifruit.net/figtastescale.xls to save the spreadsheet.

it's rather interesting. santa cruz dark and ischia white seems to have good score. i think i heard that santa cruz dark is great. haven't heard much about ischia white. i know ischia black/dark is talked about a lot here.

pete

what's a "stong berry"? lol

There is a very interesting post by "Dan_La" on 02-08-2011 here http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=2858195&highlight=taste+flavor+adriatic  (scroll down to posting #24).     I really liked the way he set up and described 5 broad categories of taste.   For me it was very useful.

intrestingly, Ischia White is listed twice but with different results. The size metric should probably something less subjective like average weight or a relative size such as golf ball. IMO

Bullet that good score for santa cruz dark is what led me to get the scionfrom UcDavis.
I dont care for it but thats my taste buds and in my climate im sure others would differ.
Were all different .

Jason,  That table was from tasting done at WEO in 2007  by Ken Love.

The caveats are that they were all caprified figs, and Ken thinks BT is the cat's meow. He is a trained-in-Japan chef. Not to take anything away from Ken. He is doing great work with figs and other fruit, in Hawaii. Just going for full disclosure.

Rueben & Jason. I thought a "strong berry" was one that could lift 10 X's its own body weight. It's all very confusing.

I know, I'm no help at all :) ......

Eating a desert would be pretty dry. I wouldn't want a fig like that.

I would prefer a dessert, myself - or a fig that is reminiscent of eating a dessert, rather than a healthy fruit, for that matter.

Deserts are for the cactii.

Alan,

I think the descriptions at the end of the columns are for the author's personal notes/preferences, not how he ate them. Not much point comparing/rating the flavor of a fruit after you have doused it in sauces or made some dessert out of it. Since he is a chef, he was probably commenting on ways to use the fig.

LOL saxonfig!
 

The descriptions, such as "savory", were intended to represent their uses.

As I said, Ken is quite a well trained chef. His goal of evaluating figs at WEO was to find varieties that could be used for various cooking applications in restaurants in Hawaii. In his opinion, some were suited for desert uses, others for use in "savory" applications where strong flavors were desired. or where they could be mixed with spices to and hearty flavors. He was there to evaluate figs with a specific goal in mind, which was cooking and restaurant uses. That does not necessarily translate when the goal is fresh eating. Each fig has a taste descriptor, and two descriptors which indicate possible uses: eating fresh ("raw"), or using in sauces, for dessert, of drying ('dry"), etc.

See more Ken's experiments and evaluations at Hawaii Fruit Net

See the original spreadsheet that he did.

As an example, he lists Barnisotte as a "4" for taste. At WEO this week, Dennis was not impressed with it. Here at my location it is probably a 9+ as far as I am concerned. Differences in taste, or differences in location, soil, climate, caprificaton, etc.

As more than one person has indicated, taste IS subjective. We all have to take all the available data, and then make our own evaluation and or draw our own conclusion.

Ask Dennis how good the Black Madeira was that I brought for him to try. It is definitely better at my location than at WEO, IMO.