The COA college class returned to the farm for the last time. We toured a number of my favorite ancient apple trees around town. Then Skylar led an apple and apple sauce tasting. Lastly we put on another 300+ tree guards. That was fun and exceedingly helpful.

The trees we visited included an assortment of iconic, local favorites of the past: Baldwin, Ben Davis, Grimes Golden, King of Tompkins County, Opalescent, Wolf River and GR-2. GR-2 is one of our top-priority mysteries. It’s a Golden Russet-type that we’ve found in multiple Maine locations. We know it’s very old, but we haven’t been able to do an ID.

For the apple/apple sauce tasting blind-folded students tasted 6 apples raw. Then with blindfolds off, they tasted 6 apple sauces and attempted to match the sauce with the apples. The majority of students got five out of six correct. It appears (from this small experiment) that, even blindfolded, our pallets can match the cooked apple with the apple itself.