How is the ripeness of an apple determined?

Apples - each of us who has tried one knows exactly what the basic features of this crunchy fruit are. It has a peel, juicy flesh, a one-of-a-kind scent and seeds from which new fruits can grow if all goes well. Scientifically speaking, however, it's not as easy to define what makes an apple an apple.

These apples were picked today. We're now going to determine how ripe they are. Three things factor into the equation, these being the fruit's sugar content, its firmness and the overall degradation of starch. To calculate the apple's firmness values, a chunk about the size of a cubic centimeter is extracted from the apple. Next, its sugar content is measured, followed by starch levels. To determine how much starch is present, the apples are sliced in half and dipped in a special solution. The principle is simple. Ripe apples don't turn as violet as less ripe ones. The sum of the collected data shows that these apples are ripe and the harvest can begin.

Here is one of the freshly picked apples with a simply perfect aroma. Chemically speaking, an apple's aroma is a composite of its esters, aldehydes and alcohols. An apple's genes produce enzymes that in turn are responsible for cultivating the fruit's various esters. The ester content indicates how far along the apple is in the ripening process. Hardly any esters are present when an apple first starts to grow.

The reason apples generally taste sweet to us is tied to signals we get from our tongue. Taste buds, located on the tongue, detect the elements of taste perception which also include sour and umami, meaning savory. Be that as it may, our ability to identify an apple and determine whether it tastes good or bad is a skill we acquire in early childhood.