Don Don Donki - Aomori apples

Eight different Aomori apples from Don Don Donki

I know that fruits are good for me, but I don’t particularly enjoy eating them.

There are some that I tolerate, and will grudgingly have, especially when The Wife forces encourages me to do so. Apples are one of those.

She usually buys her fruits from our local NTUC Fairprice. But when we were in Donki shopping for fresh fish, she saw a big bag of eight Aomori apples going for only S$12.80.

Don Don Donki - Aomori apples

I say “only” because we all know how expensive Japanese fruits can get. Even though S$1.60 per apple is by no means cheap, it’s a bargain considering that they were shipped from Aomori.

The Seasonal Aomori Apple Selection contained six red and two green apples. While some of the red ones looked similar, they all seemed to be of different varietals.

Don Don Donki - Aomori apples

The packaging didn’t indicate which specific varietals were in the bag, but I’m guessing that one of red ones is a Fuji apple, and one of the green ones is an Orin apple.

I tried using Google’s image search on the shiny red apple below, but it returned with a possible related search term of “serving platter”. Ok… if you say so.

It did return a whole bunch of red apples in the “Visually similar images” section though. Proving that Google’s image recognition works quite well, but is not granular enough to be very specific.

Don Don Donki - Aomori apples

Aomori prefecture is the main apple-growing region of Japan, accounting for more than half of the country’s production. Of these, around 70% are sold within the country and the remaining 30% are exported globally.

Given the proliferation of Donki stores in Asia, I assume a big chunk of those exports end up on its shelves.

We’ve been having an apple every few days, and I have to grudging admit that they’re been quite tasty. The red ones are crunchy and juicy, and the green ones have a pleasant sourness.

Don Don Donki - Aomori apples

Have these apples from Aomori changed my mind about apples, and fruits in general?

Nope.

But if I were forced encouraged to eat some apples, these actually wouldn’t be too bad.