Comment by comrade1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by comrade1 | Hacker News Reader

The Avocados that they can actually ship (Hass) are pretty terrible. If you haven't lived in an area where they grow avocados you probably haven't had a chance to enjoy the other dozens of varieties of avocado.

Did you know that there's an avocado you can eat like an apple? The skin is thin and edible. There's another avocado with much higher oil content than the Hass and so a different mouth feel. Another kind that has a smokey flavor, and avocados that weren't fertilized by insects and so they have no seed - just a solid fatty oily avocado. And many more...

This is one of the things I miss about CA (specifically, I lived in Ventura, CA). (another is the huge variety of citrus, including a strain where they breed the acidity out of an orange and so it tasted like vanilla...)

http://edibleojai.com/online-magazine/heritage-avocados/

(the one in the lower left looks like the edible skin one I remember)

And a small list of CA varieties: http://ucavo.ucr.edu/avocadovarieties/VarietyFrame.html#Anch...

There's even more varieties in Hawaii.

I've lived in CA (Silicon Valley), and I agree that the avocados are one of the best things about living there. The other is the weather: that perfect Mediterranean climate with hot, dry (and I mean no rain April-Sept.) summers and mild, rainy winters.

Now I live on the actual Mediterranean. The climate is still amazing, the avacados...meh. Really not very good at all. But the olives! You have never had olives. Not like this. The varieties, the flavor, it's just like you describe for avocados in CA.

It's always struck me as odd that both places could have their own you-can't-find-them-elsewhere specialities that would be so different for what is essentially an identical climate. For olives, I can only assume it has to do with their multi-century lifespan.

Maybe the soil has something to do with it also. There are some Mangoes that only taste the same if grown in a certain region of India, and I always heard that was because of the soil + climate.

I love Hass avocados because they are less sweet, and good one will have that smokeyness which adds complexity to the flavor. It is a good example of where commercial and flavor interests ended up aligned.

Hass may not be the tastiest avos, but they are superior to what was the dominant commercial variety (fuerte) before they took over.

Related: the Hass "mother" tree:

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-29/local/me-373_1_hass-a...

Same can be said for bananas, I always try to find local bananas (or other fruit) when ever i'm somewhere tropical. So much better.

With that said, I think I've only ever eaten Hass Avocados and I think they are delicious so my next trip to CA I'll be sure to seek out some local varieties.

Last summer I planted a Blue Java banana plant, never having tasted one. I'm waiting rather impatiently for it to mature and fruit so I can see how they taste.

I find the Hass ones to be vastly more flavorful than the big green ones we have here all over Florida.

Here in the Phoenix area Hass is usually the only thing available. Once I saw big, smooth-skinned, lighter green ones from Florida and I bought some. I was very disappointed. I'd love to try some different varieties.

My Father-in-Law lived in Ventura and we used to get a box of avocados a few times a year from his backyard tree. The house he owned had been built in an old avocado orchard and a few trees remained. Fond memories...

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