Jazz apple

Jazz is a modern apple variety, developed in New Zealand in the 1980s. It is a cross between two other major apple varieties - Braeburn and Gala. Not surprisingly it has a lot of "shelf appeal", being a medium size, and with a very attractive appearance. It is marketed as a "bi-coloured" apple, because the strong red/marroon colour is broken up by areas of green / yellow / orange. It tends to attract a premium price.

It is worth comparing Jazz with its sibling - Kanzi - see our review of Kanzi apple, including comparative photo.

There is a widely-held view, that only the old heritage apples have real flavour, and that new mass-market varieties aimed at filling supermarket shelves are tasteless.  There is perhaps some truth in this, but as consumers increasingly look for flavour in their weekly shopping baskets, apple growers have begun to respond by developing varieties where flavour is more prominent than it perhaps used to be in the previous generation of supermarket apples.  It has to be said that Jazz really scores here, with an excellent strong flavor that clearly puts it ahead of many old classic varieties.  There is a pronounced pear-drop sweetness, and very little acidity - a characteristic that can lead to blandness in Gala, but Jazz always has a good flavor.

We have been advised by Steve T of New Zealand that the red colour is key to the unique Jazz flavour - poorly-coloured apples will taste like Braeburns.  From our own tests we would tend to agree with this.

The butter-yellow flesh is juicy, crisp and dense.  Indeed the one drawback of Jazz is that it is a very solid apple, and may be a bit difficult to bite into if you do not have strong teeth - the solution is to cut it into slices first.

Jazz is grown in New Zealand, France, and Washington state in the USA, with most commercial plantings only starting in 2000. Like a number of modern varieties it is trade-marked, and was developed in conjunction with a marketing agency - Enzafruit - which controls planting and marketing internationally. "Jazz" is actually a trademarked brand name, the variety name is Scifresh.

200,000 Jazz trees were planted in the UK in 2006 and the first UK-grown Jazz apples became available in 2008. More details about the marketing of Jazz apples in the UK can be found on the Jazz Apples website. The trademark restrictions mean you are unlikely to find this tree available from fruit tree nurseries (if you do please let us know because we would like to buy one!).

Jazz tends to become available towards the end of the season - so in northern Europe and North America locally grown fruit comes into shops in November/December whilst southern hemisphere apples will be available in May. Because it is so new supplies tend to be limited, but this is a very long-keeping variety and therefore likely to be popular with producers. Jazz ripens very late and has very dense hard flesh which benefits from softening slightly in storage. It will be interesting to see if the juicy flavour is retained in storage.

Jazz shows lots of promise as a future supermarket apple variety and hopefully will become widely available. The appearance and keeping qualities are very good, and in our opinion it has by far the best flavour of all the mainstream apple varieties - indeed it is the only supermarket apple variety which makes it into our Top 10 Apple Varieties.