If you told someone that a grape could taste like cotton candy you could forgive their dubious expression since it does sound rather farcical. It’s true though, there is a grape that really tastes as if it’s made of spun sugar and air.
The cotton candy grape is the brain-child of Horticulturist David Cain and his team at International Fruit Genetics in Bakersfield, Calif. Cain himself said that he wanted to bring back the natural flavours of grapes, which he feels have been stripped away after decades of breeding fruit to withstand shipping and storage, instead of what they should be bred for – being tasty.
“When you go to the supermarket, there’s like 15 kinds of apples — Fuji, Pink Lady, Gala, Braeburn. The list goes on,” Cain tells The Salt. “We want to give consumers the same array of flavours for grapes.”
It’s also interesting to note that the grape isn’t a product of genetic engineering, but rather a hybrid of two different grape species.
The result is a grape that only has a 12% higher sugar content than regular table grapes, yet has zero tartness, which means that there’s almost nothing to stop the intense melt-in-your-mouth sweetness that it produces.
Recreating this grape outside of the States is a project that Silverlands started some time ago. It requires the highest degree of expertise since seedless grapes can’t reproduce on their own. After fertilisation, the baby embryos must be removed and then grown in individual test tubes before taken to the field.
It’s a process that can take anywhere from 6 to 15 years but it’s something that’s definitely worth the wait and you’ll thank us for it when you get to experience them for yourself.