If You Don't Have Your Own Pear Tree (Pear Tree)

Member Name: MagdaDH

Product:	Pear Tree
Date:	13/05/09 (9 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good value, good size

Disadvantages: sold unripe

It's rather difficult to buy decent pears in a supermarket, mostly because pears need to be very ripe indeed to have any discernible flavour or aroma. If such fruit were on sale, their shelf life would be incredibly short and thus would need to be rather expensive or unprofitable, and we can't have that.

I tend to buy these packets of Tesco pears as they are reasonably priced (between 99p and £1.50, depending on time of the year and promotions) and contain pears which ripen very nicely.

The dooyoo product photo shows very nice, yellow pears, but in reality they are sold uniformly green and normally need at least 5-6 days in the cupboard (they can be also ripened in the fruit bowl but my family would eat them in their sorry green state). Sometimes 10 days is better.

Recently, the pears included were Williams pears and when ripe, they become yellow with a pink blush, soft, juicy and sweet: perhaps not always a perfect pear but nice enough for normal consumption. But the variety used for those packs changes seasonally, and I also recall Rocha and even small Conferences.

Marketed as "funsize", these are normally slightly smaller than other supermarket pears, and are thus perfectly sized for children, which would often otherwise eat only a part of the fruit and waste the rest. But they would also work well for pear deserts (pears in red wine - wonderful!).

All in all, probably the best value practical option for pears in Tesco, and if you buy them regularly, you will always have a supply of ripe ones as needed.

Ideally, I would like all fruit to be available loose, as the packaged lots are usually more expensive per piece/per pound, but as there are usually 10 pears in the packet these are a good value even at the full price.

Recommended.

Summary: probably the best value practical option for pears in Tesco