Hacker News Reader

Comment by motionlessveloc | Hacker News Reader

Grapes are commonly peeled in Japan, and people will look at you strangely if you eat them skin on. However, Japanese grapes are huge and have a thick, astringent skin that peels off easily.

Likewise, when Japanese people go overseas and start peeling grapes, people look at them strangely. Eventually they figure out that Western grapes are small, hard to peel and the skins are thin and nearly tasteless, so they adopt our barbarian habits too.

Updated to add: Japanese grapes like Kyoho are actually hybrid cultivars of Western grapes (Vitis vinifera) and Concord grapes (Vitis labrusca), which is why they're so different.

View on HN

Fun fact: a lot of people think artificial grape flavoring doesn't taste like grapes. And that the "Welch's concord grape jam" variety of jams is artificially flavored.

Nope, that's just what some grapes taste like. There's a Korean variety, and Concord at least. Wiki says it's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitis_labrusca

The grapes that grow in my back yard are Concords, and that shouldn't be surprising because Concord is a couple of towns over.

They taste just like Welch's.

Yeah, Concord grapes are based on Fox grapes; when the new Welch's headquarters opened on Baker Ave they included a plantation started from cuttings from the original farm (which is just a house now but they still maintain their own grapes.) Welch's downsized and moved the HQ to Waltham last year, apparently the vines got distributed to local historic places and farmers https://concordbridge.org/index.php/2026/04/06/the-grape-esc...

I've had this conversation and the way I explained it is that our grapes are closer to the boba in bubble tea. It's not quite right (they don't pop quite as much) and boba isn't Japanese, but it gets the point across.

Whose grapes are you likening to boba? I’m struggling with the comparison - even a loose one.

Is there a grape variety I’m entirely ignorant of?

Like my parent said, the grapes in East Asia are thick-skinned, and people either peel them or suck out their flesh. The ones sold in Europe are very thin-skinned, and peeling is largely impractical. I'm relating the latter to boba.

big purple concord grapes grow wild in the US and are thick skinned and you squeeze or suck out the grape inside, skin significantly more tart than the sweet grape, pretty sure those are the tannins that you get in wine from skin contact even those those are different grape varieties.

I've visited a number of European winegrower family farms and they frequently also grow table grapes for their own consumption. The table grapes they eat are much much less sweet than vinifera grapes where the yeast consume all the sugar into alcohol and which are basically too sweet to enjoy.

I split my time between Europe and China so I'm aware of the differences in that regard. My question was specifically regarding the comparison between European grapes and boba because I was struggling to identify any shared attributes from the varieties I have experienced. Is there a variety of grape which is more chewy in texture, perhaps?

I'm unclear why such a simple question appeared to offend at least one person.

That comment makes more sense if you read it as referring to popping boba [0] rather than the "normal" chewy tapioca boba. Grapes don't pop but the feel of the skin is similar enough.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popping_boba

Yep, that's what I meant!

Similar hybrids are becoming more popular in the states, for example the "Thomcord" or "Cotton Candy". They're absolutely delicious and have either small seeds or none at all. Recommend to try for anyone who hasn't yet!

I live near a Korean pan-Asian convenience store, and I've been enjoy the variety of beverages and ramen available there. Oceania today exports foods with significant influence by Italian cuisine, in particular.

There are some fruit drinks which contain whole fruit, like green grapes. It's sort of on the spectrum if you imagine canned grapes, which come in a "light syrup" but the beverage is a thinned-out version of that, not tart or sugary like American grape juice.

But you pour the can out, and a couple of fresh grapes come out as well. I suppose they are peeled. I was a little disappointed when the pear juice didn't include sliced pears. But there are many more fruits to try!

Yes I love those grape drinks! Very similar to thinned out canned fruit cocktail syrup/fruits.

That's crazy, theres tons of taste in grape skin

Cf. red wine

My dad would peel the skin of every fruit, including grapes, which is how I learned to do it.

Are you/your dad Japanese? I feel like we're missing most of the context here.

Skin on fruit is full of fiber, along with potatoes, etc. I only ever take the skin off things if it really bothers me.

My mum peels button mushrooms, never realized it was weird and no one does this until I was an adult.

I'm 45 and only recently realised the grapes in the UK are "seedless". Grapes with seeds was not a pleasant experience when I accidentally ate one whilst in Croatia.

that's genetic modification for you. nature doesn't make seedless fruits

If by "genetic modification" you mean "random genetic mutation" formally known as stenospermocarpy.

Seedless grapes existed in the Mediterranean centuries ago. The now-popular Thompson seedless was brought from the Ottoman empire in 1872.

Similar story with bananas and the parthenocarpy mutation. Then you layer selective breeding on top of that to create complete sterility due to triploidy.

Others like the babaco papaya are just simple sterile interspecific hybrids.

So nature actually does make seedless fruit by accident quite often. It's just that you need humans to come along and clonally propagate them.

I much prefer grapes with seeds. They are much tastier and have a nicer texture in my opinion. The difference is enough that I almost consider the seedless variety to be a separate fruit altogether.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com