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.

There is a widely-held view, that only the old heritage apples have real flavour, and that new mass-produced 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 producers 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 flavour 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 flavour.

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, certainly at the start of the new season.

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 are now coming into production - 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!).

It tends to become available towards the end of the season - so in northern Europe 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 matures 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.

January 2008 update.  Jazz has a new sibling - Kanzi!  Read our review of Kanzi apple, including comparative photo.

December 2008 update.  First UK-grown Jazz apples available.  We'd like to congratulate UK grower S. Elworthy for a very creditable first crop inspite of a worse than usual summer.  The appearance and taste are perhaps not - quite - up to the quality of French-sourced Jazz apples - but crucially they do have "that" flavour.

May 2009 update. New Zealand-grown Jazz apples available, good texture and strong peardrop flavour - very satisfying.