How much is a pineapple worth? Is a strawberry really better than a cherry? What does that spikey fruit at the supermarket actually taste like - does it taste any good? Where does the humble apple fit into all this? Every fruit analysed and rated according to how weird they taste and how /good/ they taste.
How much is a pineapple worth? Is a strawberry really better than a cherry? What does that spikey fruit at the supermarket actually taste like - does it taste any good? Where does the humble apple fit into all this? Every fruit analysed and rated according to how weird they taste and how /good/ they taste.
How much is a pineapple worth? Is a strawberry really better than a cherry? What does that spikey fruit at the supermarket actually taste like - does it taste any good? Where does the humble apple fit into all this? Every fruit analysed and rated according to how weird they taste and how /good/ they taste.










Additionally, the fruits have been given ratings indicating the degrees of 'sharpness' and 'sweetness'.
Whilst a fruit can be bitter, this doesn't necessary make it flat, and on the other hand, a fruit that's sweet doesn't mean it's bursting with tanginess/sharpness. You get the idea... or you will do anyway =)

Note: Ratings for taste are generally logarithmic, so a rating difference of about 6 points makes a real difference of double/half etc.

I have tried to taste as many of the fruits as I could (and on more than a couple of occasions in case it was off). I have also tried to be as accurate as possible ;-) Since this page is updated, expect to see more fruits featured here in the future. If you have any comments regarding this page, please email me at the usual address.

Here's a description of how the fruits are rated:

Any fruit which stands out in any way will receive an award!
Winner of the "....." award

Main ratings will be given for taste and weirdness.
Weirdness factor: 10/20
Taste rating: 25/50

Further seperate ratings will be given for sweet/bitter and sharp/flat.
The thin white line indicates the amount of each attribute

Total fruit reviewed thus far: 41


News for 25/3/02:
a: More ratings for each fruit including sharpness and sweetness ratings.
b: New tables categorising each factor by order of rating (soon to be complete).
c: Papaya, Cherimoya, Sharon fruit, Pomegranite and 4 types of grapefruit added.
d: Information changed/added to many other fruits.
e: Slight shuffle of fruit placements and a few bugs fixed too.
f: Special awards for certain fruits

Sort fruit by taste rating Sort fruit by weirdness factor
You are viewing the page sorted by weirdness factor
Apple:
Mundane, fairly dull, but quite edible. Better to eat if already peeled. Overall, a bit overrated ;) Not a great deal of variation between all the different types either...
Having said this, it is a better fruit to eat if peeled, so add a few points in that case.
Winner of the "Most Common fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 0/20
Taste rating: 34/50
Banana - overripe (often with brown patches)
Right, I know I said how each fruit would be assumed to be the best of its kind, but I'm going to make an exception here. This is not the same banana as the 'green' banana (you'll see that one seperately and much higher ranked). Nope - this one's over-ripe, and sure as heck it lets you know it. On a side note, I've noticed that all products claiming to be 'banana' flavour always imitate the dull over-ripe yellow/brown banana, instead of the 'green' one. Typical...
Weirdness factor: 1/20
Taste rating: 20/50
Orange!!
Just like the others, this is the most 'ideal' orange under judgement. Well, who can resist. Very citrusy, and much like a lemon, but not as bitter, thus better.
Weirdness factor: 2/20
Taste rating: 40/50
Grape (green/purple):
The seedless variety of the grape is a must is you want to stay sane. If there had to be a default flavour for a 'tangy' fruit - the grape would be it.
The purple variety is slightly preferable thanks to being a tad sweeter.
Weirdness factor: 2/20
Taste rating: 36/50
Tangerine
Blissfully easy to peel compared to its cousin - the orange, this sweet fruit also tastes like one, but with a slightly less tangy flavour. There is barely any difference between the tangerine and satsuma. Both however are superior to the clementine.
Winner of the "Easiest To Peel" award
Weirdness factor: 2/20
Taste rating: 37/50
Lemon
A very bitter, acidic fruit, the humble lemon gets the award for the fruit most used as a flavour but something which is rarely eaten raw. Some like it raw (like my brother - but then he's mad ;)
Winner of the "Most Sharp/bitter" award
Weirdness factor: 3/20
Taste rating: 24/50
Clementine
Similar to the tangerine/satsuma/mandarin, but worse basically. A watered down version, one could say it is slightly 'off' when put up against the tangerine.
Weirdness factor: 3/20
Taste rating: 26/50
Banana (green)
How a banana should taste, and not anything like the yellow/brown banana thank goodness. Everyone is used to what a banana tastes like, but it is fairly unusual in that there's not an ounce of citric-y-ness (cheers) to it - i.e. nothing like an apple/orange.
Weirdness factor: 3/20
Taste rating: 37/50

Tomato
Making it into the fruit section by technical definition alone, this 'fruit' tastes more like a vegetable. Despite the low-ish mark, it comes into its own when cooked and used with other foods. But as something to eat in its own right? Neah.....
Weirdness factor: 3/20
Taste rating: 24/50
Pear:
Similar to an apple, the pear has a somewhat more subtle flavour. Easier to eat too, according to what time you eat it (an apple always stays rock hard).
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 35/50
Plum
Effectively an overgrown cherry, the plum has a nice 'chunky' texture. Fairly big, tangy, sweet, easy to eat - what more could you want? Also similar in taste to a nectarine.
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 37/50
Peach
Providing you can stand the rough/furry skin, they have a similar to taste to a 'standard' nectarine (but maybe don't quite match up to the to the deluxe nectarines).
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 36/50
Strawberry!!!!!
Arguably the best fruit ever, especially when freshly picked from the fields (oh - you're meant to store them for later?). Their only real drawback is the size which often is small-ish. Yes, apple-sized strawberries would be cool so this gets the award for the best fruit ever!
Winner of the "Best fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 43/50

Lime
Barely any different from a lemon unfortunately, so it's just as bitter. Lime cordial and (especially) lime jelly always smells so nice :/ Can't say the same for the fruit for some reason. There's an extremely unique flavour there - it's just dug deep.
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 25/50
Nectarine!!!
No doubt, you're wondering how this got such a high rating. The usual variety of nectarines are actually nice, but I have actually tasted some variety that's better in every way. These are the variety that have scored so highly...
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 42/50
Cherry
Very nice - a superior version of a plum, with their small size being their obvious drawback. erm..... they look shiny too. Did I mention that they looked shiny?
Note: the dried version of a cherry (often put on top of cakes etc.) is nowhere near as nice and it fact tastes like something else altogether.
Weirdness factor: 4/20
Taste rating: 39/50
Raspberry:
A unique tasting fruit shaped similar to the blackberry. Did you know that the raspberry isn't technically one fruit - but many fruits - combining to form one compound fruit. Technically known as a 'syncarp' fruit.
Weirdness factor: 5/20
Taste rating: 32/50
Grapefruit (white)
I've tried out 4 types of grapefruit now, and can say with some confidence that the best has to be the white grapefruit. This is the version that scores so highly.
In order from worst to best we have:
Yellow grapefruit This is the most 'boring' and 'typical' grapefruit. Quite good really, with obvious citrusy overtones, but it does leave an unpleasant bitter taste in the mouth afterwards.
Red grapefruit Slightly better than the yellow grapefruit. More sweet, though less sharp perhaps...
Pink grapefruit This is more like it. Sweeter than the average grapefruit, this is the same flavour they use for the various squash drinks available. I can certanily see why...
White grapefruit The best! Less like a grapefruit and more like a Pomelo (but with a sharper taste), this is definitely what a grapefruit should taste like. It should dominate the supermarket shelves!
Winner of the "Most Mouthwatering fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 5/20
Taste rating: 39/50
Pomelo!
A real surprise this. It's hardly known and even comes into the 'exotic' category, but in taste, it combines a subtle orange, a bit of tangerine and a slight grapefruit flavour. It actually looks like a typical grapefruit, but only the white grapefruit is comparable in taste. Sweeter, and more refined, it should at least be as popular with the better varieties of grapefruit. Definitely one of the top citrus fruits - try one ASAP.
Weirdness factor: 5/20
Taste rating: 39/50
Blackberry
A sweet and tangy fruit very often found in back gardens or fields. The only downer being that the quality of the average blackberry is less than exceptional - with many being over-ripe, under-ripe and the occasion where you get more than you bargained for (maggots anyone? ;/ ). But the best one is on trial here (which is the type that is specially grown), so it gets a total...
Winner of the ITP (Insect's Thumbs Up) award
Weirdness factor: 5/20
Taste rating: 37/50
Blueberry
Effectively an inferior version of the blackberry, this tiny blue-black fruit bears much in common with the red-currant... well at least as far as size goes.
Winner of the "Smallest fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 6/20
Taste rating: 28/50
Apricot
I've never actually tried one of these until now. Shape is a reminiscent of a peach. As for flavour... hmmmm... a bit of pear, plum and peach but not really as good as any of these. No actual unique taste as such.
Weirdness factor: 6/20
Taste rating: 27/50
Kiwi!!!!
A semi-exotic fruit, the kiwi is awesome in its subtlety of flavour - and is superior in every way to the watermelon. A tangy, sweet pulp, with a dreamy texture, it goes without saying this fruit is highly recommended. Now all we need are watermelon-sized Kiwi fruits!
Weirdness factor: 6/20
Taste rating: 42/50
Watermelon (yellow)
The heavy weight of the fruit world. Hmm.... a fairly tasteless fruit, but not bad nonetheless. It has a slightly salty flavour and I suppose one could say it has a taste in between a cucumber and a pear, with the texture of the latter. Very big - that's for sure.
Winner of the "Biggest fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 6/20
Taste rating: 28/50
Gooseberry
A 'sharp' version of a grape, with the best variety tasting sweeter than the 'average' gooseberry. Watch out for the weird half-edible spikey-esque skin though.
Weirdness factor: 6/20
Taste rating: 36/50
Paw Paw
'Paw' by name - poor by nature. It is in fact even more boring than a watermelon if that's possible. Suffering from the same problems that plague other fruit, it basically... tastes a bit like a vegetable. I can't quite pin it down, but maybe something like cucumber or tomato.
Weirdness factor: 6/20
Taste rating: 18/50

Mango
Tasting quite nice in a way, this fruit has elements of apricot and peach. Unfortunately, it also suffers a problem quite common among the less popular fruits in that it has a slight vegetable flavour. The culprit in question is the Parsnip.
Weirdness factor: 7/20
Taste rating: 28/50
Fig
First things first. This is certainly not what I thought a 'fig' tasted like. A fig is meant to taste dry and it certainly looks different. Anyway...
...looking like a strange kind of onion (or plant bulb for that matter), this weird fruit could be said to have the taste of a slightly salty watermelon or a 'subtle' version of a pear. Nothing spesh.
Weirdness factor: 7/20
Taste rating: 27/50
Red currant
If there had to be a fruit that tasted like a cross between a typical citrus fruit and a poisonous plant - then this would be it. Not really meant to be eaten in its own right, it's usually used for contrast in puddings etc., but as this article rates each fruit stand-alone, then this will score fairly low. Cherries look the same, but are much bigger and tastier; eat those instead.
Winner of the "Most Poisonous taste" award
Weirdness factor: 8/20
Taste rating: 17/50

Pineapple
The most popular 'exotic' fruit, this fruit tastes as good as it looks. An unusual fruit in the sense that no other fruit quite has its taste.
Winner of the "Coolest Looking fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 8/20
Taste rating: 38/50
Kumquat
Looking like a tangerine in a time warp, this tiny thing is... well a sad excuse for a lemon actually. Slightly sweeter than a lemon perhaps, but there's so little there that you'd have to be the size of one to actually attempt to enjoy it...
Weirdness factor: 8/20
Taste rating: 23/50
Lychee:
This small fruit contains an extra added unique flavour on top of an ordinary grape. The sweeter, preferable variety has a deeper red shell. Apparently, there's a more preferable version of the lychee - recognised by the fact that there's no surplus fluid once the shell is broken. I've yet to try this kind.

Weirdness factor: 9/20
Taste rating: 31/50

Cherimoya
A pear shaped fruit, but with a green mottled or leaf surface which upon opening reveals an avocado-esque white-ish centre. After the horrors with /that/ particular fruit, I hoped for something a bit better. Hmmm... well it turned out to be quite strange, and not as bad as the avocado, but still mediocre. Taste combines a hint of avocado, with a touch of overripe banana and a pinch of pear. Hmmm indeed.
Weirdness factor: 10/20
Taste rating: 23/50
Sharon fruit
A tomato shaped fruit except it has a yellowy golden colour to it. Taste is ummm.... sorta subtle peach taste, and quite a bit of the bland 'cucumber' taste, but saltier. Something like that. Interrestingly though, I've been informed that the one I had was not as nice as they usually are. I'll retaste one in the future for a possible higher placed ranking.
Weirdness factor: 10/20
Taste rating: 23/50
Coconut:
One of those fruits that has far more potential used as a flavour in something else rather than eaten raw in its own right. A highly unique flavour, this fruit is one of the biggest and hardest to open of fruits. Not technically a fruit, but never mind :P
Winner of the "This isn't a fruit - you nut" award
Weirdness factor: 11/20
Taste rating: 33/50
Papaya
Oooh, this is a close call to the Rambutan. Its shape is that of a lemon, but longer, and with a cheesy looking skin.
Similar to the 'Paw Paw' in that the taste is virtually non-existant. Well, actually there is a very slight 'interesting' flavour there, but it's just dug /so/ very deep.
Also, what you don't want to do is accidentally bite into the pips inside. They taste like stinging nettles and if you should bite sufficiently hard enough into one of these pips, they also sting a bit too on your tongue - cool I know.
Winner of the "Most Insipid fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 11/20
Taste rating: 15/50

Physalis
Tasting like a cross between a cherry and a peach with a slight hint of cucumber, this very small fruit doesn't taste bad. It could do with a shift in size though...
Weirdness factor: 12/20
Taste rating: 29/50
Avocado
A strange, creamy fruit. In fact it almost tastes like nothing. Except it doesn't quite taste like nothing. There's a 'subtle' eggy/creamy/nutty flavour. This isn't necessarily always a bad thing, but for a 'fruit', it's probably not advised. Anyway, if not for the taste, you might want to try it for its novelty. Just don't expect to enjoy it much.
Weirdness factor: 13/20
Taste rating: 15/50

Pomegranite:
Woah this does bring back memories. It is an understatement to say this is awkward to eat. The rankings for all the fruit listed on this page do /not/ take into account ease of eating (or peeling) which is why the Pomegranite scores so highly, but it would certainly score lower if this factor was taken into account. You open the thing up and there's an inedible 'pulp skeleton' with loads of small seeds roughly on the inside. So where's the fruit you may ask? Well, believe it or not, the fruit is contained in a very small 'bag' around each seed. So all you have to do is take out each seed and painfully bite around each one. It's a bit like eating hundreds of tiny plums! Taste is a cross between redcurrant, cherry and orange. If microsoft ever designed a fruit, the Pomegranite would surely be it.

Winner of the MAD (Most Awkward Design) award
Weirdness factor: 14/20
Taste rating: 32/50
Passion fruit
Now first glance at this, and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a badly bruised apple. Also, on opening, the contents look quite revolting! But the proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say, and so I decided to risk biting into this number (I don't know, the things I do for you lot). Hmm.... not bad actually - kinda sickly sweet, but a very unique flavour. Lots of pips - that's for sure.
Winner of the "Sickly Sweet" award
Weirdness factor: 14/20
Taste rating: 30/50
Rambutan
Woah, this does look weird - like a lychee that's suddenly decided to de-evolve and grow hair. Apparently, it's meant to taste like a lychee too, so let's put the two to the test. Hmm... right, ugh, yes, it /does/ taste like a lychee and even looks like one, but there's an extra element which gives it a 'fishy' flavour. Definitely low on the scale. Stick to the lychee.
Winner of the "Worst fruit" award
Weirdness factor: 14/20
Taste rating: 15/50

Have you any comments about this page?
Visit Skytopia's Whirlpool of Knowledge Forum. All feedback appreciated!

Fruits still yet to be rated:
Blood orange, marrs orange
Valencia
Ponderosa lemon
Feijoas (pineapple guava)
Guava, Mexican guavas
sapote blanco
Atemoya (/very/ sweet apparently)
Surinam
Barbados cherry
java plum
Sugar apple
Strawberry guava
loquat
 carambula
the kaffir plum
mammey
Hautbois/Green strawberry (very nice apparently)
Fuchsia splendens (superior lemon?)
Dwarf quince
Japanese quince
Feijoa (apparently very nice tasting like a cross
between pineapple and strawberry)
Shallon
Maidenhair vine
Goldenberry (apparently absolutely delicious)
Yacon
Wild cherry
Dwarf sumach (Very big/tasty fruit apparently)
Golden currant
Ramanas rose
Nepalese raspberry
Elderberry (rather unpleasant apparently) Japanese yew