by Megan Minnick, Purchasing Director
Not many things in this world are as delectable as a good peach, with its drip-down-your-chin juice and perfectly balanced sweetness. There’s also nothing quite as disappointing as a mealy, dry peach. But how do you tell which is which? It’s harder than you might think.
Our Produce management team has over 80 years of peach handling experience between us, and we’re still learning.
Below you’ll find some tips and tricks that we’ve learned over the years for selecting and ripening that perfect peach.
If you walk away with one thing from this article it should be this: the only really tried and true way to know if a peach is good is to taste it. We do our best to make sure every peach that hits our shelves is delicious, but they are such a finicky fruit that it would be disingenuous to say that we are always successful. If you’d like to try before you buy, just ask a Produce staff member and we’d be glad to cut one for you to try!
How to Select a Good Peach
I’ve said it before (and I’ll say it again), tasting a peach is the only fail-safe way to know if it’s good or not. That said, here are a few other cues to look for when selecting a good peach.
Aroma
Aroma is the first thing to check for. A good peach should smell like a peach—the stronger the fragrance, the better. One big caveat here is that if the peach in question is in refrigeration, the chill will dull the aroma, so this trick is best used on room temperature fruit.
Appearance
The appearance of the fruit can be less of a give away than you might think. Many modern peach varieties have been bred for looks, not eating quality—so an aesthetically pleasing peach might not always be as pleasing to your taste buds as it is to your eyes. The amount of red “blush” on the peach is not as important as the background color, which should be cream colored (not green).
Size
Size has nothing to do with peach quality. Typically, peaches are graded at the orchard—the larger fruit are sold at premium prices since many shoppers prefer bigger, showier peaches, while the smaller fruit are sold for less. Peaches from the same tree will generally taste the same no matter their size.
Peaches that are a bit wrinkly are usually ripe, but dehydrated. Without as much water in the fruit, the sugars and other flavors are condensed, making for a very sweet but not quite so juicy eating experience. These are some of my favorites, especially if you like really sweet, flavorful fruit!
Texture
Texture is the last thing to look for. I hesitate to even bring it up, since the bane of any produce manager’s existence is the over-eager customers squeezing (and bruising) the peaches. All it takes to assess the texture of a fruit is to gently close your hand around the peach. It should be the consistency of a tennis ball. If it feels like a baseball, it was likely picked too green to ripen correctly.
What Makes a Bad Peach Bad?
The most common reason that peaches turn mealy, flavorless, and dry is chill damage. If peaches are subjected to cold (near 32ºF) temperatures for too long, they will not ripen correctly no matter how good the peach was to start with or what ripening techniques are used. Chill damage almost never happens at the orchard itself but in transit, and it is impossible to detect without cutting into the fruit.
As a produce manager, avoiding peaches with chill damage can be a real challenge. We go to great lengths to make sure that we are purchasing peaches from highly skilled growers and distribution partners we trust, but if one truck en route from California has their refrigeration turned just a few degrees too low, it can ruin the whole load, and it likely won’t be detected until the fruit starts to ripen in our stores or at customers’ houses.
We do our best to sample as many peaches as we can to ensure that we stock only the highest quality fruit—and most of the time we are successful—however if you ever do get a poor quality peach from one of our stores, don’t hesitate to return it for a full refund. It’s actually quite helpful for us to get returns on fruit like this so we can change our sourcing.
Ripening & Storage
You’ve got your tennis ball textured peach home, and you want to ripen it to perfection. What’s the best way to go about it?
If you are looking to ripen a peach as quickly as possible, you can put it in a paper bag on the counter or on top of the fridge. The bag traps the ethylene gas emitted by the peach and hastens the ripening process. You’ll want to check the peach very often however—twice a day at minimum—to avoid over-ripening.
A slower, but safer method of ripening is to simply leave the fruit out at room temperature. You’ll still want to check it once a day and more often in hot weather.
A ripe peach will be extremely aromatic and soft to the touch. Once you’ve reached peak ripeness, either eat it right away or it can be stored in the fridge for a few days. Just like aroma, refrigeration can dull the flavors of a peach so savor your peaches at room temperature for the best eating experience.
Yellow vs. White Peaches
Through most of the summer, we carry both yellow and white peaches. Yellow peaches have more acid with a balanced, classic peach flavor. White peaches are sweeter, with a more delicate flavor. Yellow peaches are by far the more popular of the two, but a good white peach is a delicious thing.
Know Your Origin
Each growing region produces its own unique peach characteristics, based on the specific climate and soil in that area. Here’s a quick rundown of the most common growing regions where we source our peaches.
You might notice Georgia and other Southern states are not on this list. The reason is that there aren’t a lot of certified organic peaches grown in that state, and those that are typically are shipped to East Coast markets, so we don’t have access to them.
California
The first part of the summer (late May through sometime in July) is dominated by California-grown organic peaches. The climate in California is perfect for peach-growing, and that state produces some of the most delectable peaches on Earth. However, it is also a long way from Wisconsin, and there are a lot of opportunities for California peaches to be damaged en route. We’ve found that California peaches are the trickiest to manage, but when we get good ones, they are GOOD!
Pacific Northwest (Washington and Oregon)
After the California organic peach season, the harvests move north into the Pacific Northwest. Peaches from Washington and Oregon are typically sweeter and firmer than California peaches with a bit less of an acidic balance to their sugars. They are less prone to mealiness.
Colorado
Because Colorado is a little closer than California, farmers there typically allow their fruit to ripen further on the trees before harvest. This means that organic Colorado peaches have a much more dependably good texture—juicy and soft and are less likely to be mealy. Colorado peaches have a really nice peach flavor, but they tend to have a little less sweetness than West Coast peaches.
Door County, Wisconsin
Typically available from mid-August through September, these peaches are from Barnard Farms in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and are not certified organic. Door County peaches are smaller than those from the West Coast or Colorado. They are a little firmer when ripe, and tend to have a little less sugar, more acid, and really nice peach flavor.