chong

Rob,
Thank you for your admirable restraint. Our organization is supposed to be fun, enjoyable and at the same time informative. When someone expresses misconceptions, they should not be crucified for it. However, we should respect others who share their experiences, be it similar to our own or different. No one can argue with someones experience, but you can disagree with someone's opinion without being insulting or condescending. We would certainly appreciate expert comments, but we should not be critical of others' opinion, naive as they may be to some, and worse, when they share their experience. Please encourage your friends to continue coming to our forums and just take undesirable comments with a grain of salt, or ignore them. There are so much more posts that are very helpful and fun.

In the Philippines where I grew up, "Butuan" - M. Errans (Butuan, musa errans, butuan banana, botoan banana: Philippine Medicinal Herbs / PhilippineHerbal Medicines), a seeded variety, is very, very tasty. Most people in the Phillippines generally destroy this plant. We had several clumps of this in our backyard and we didn't let he plant and fruit go to waste. we ate the fruit and cooked the blossom. The blossom, in fact is the best tasting ingredient for cooking than any other banana blossom. It was never putrid or bitter like other varieties which require special preparations before they were used for cooking. So, I commensurate with your qualifying statement that due to environmental influences, others may have different experience from yours. I'm disappointed that one of our members, whom I think is one of the experts in bananas and citrus in our organization, rarely join in discussions any longer, for the very same reasons that your friends may be avoiding this site.

God bless.
Chong

Chong

Julian

The island that I am from in Hawaii consist of over 90% Filipino immigrants and they brought all of their favorite bananas from the Philippines. This one did not make the cut, and was not worth smuggling over. But they are probably in the top 20..

Julian

Where I am from, (Same as Rob) We have bunches that are not as robust, but I have never tasted a difference in taste between bunches. Rob would probably agree with me. There is no running water where he lives, so the bananas near his lawn gets more water than those that are in the back of the garden. He mentioned a while ago that he noticed a difference in size of his DB bunches, but that the taste does not differ.

Gabe15

I think the link Chong posted has a taxonomical error in referring to to 'Butuhan' as M. acuminata subsp. errans, though vernacular names don't always correspond nicely with botanical names, to my knowledge 'Butuhan' generally refers to various forms of M. balbisiana, and M. balbisiana varieties are generally known to be appreciated for using the male bud and other non-fruit uses. They are relatively easy to find on O'ahu once you know how to spot them. PM me if you would like to discuss specific locations I know where they are.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Gabe15

As for the 'Veinte Cohol' fruit taste report, regardless of growing conditions, a report is a report and the observation is valid and appreciated in my opinion. I would hazard to guess that most bananas in the world are not grown, handled and presented in a way which seek to optimize their flavor (standard export Cavendish exemplify this very well), but we want to know how they taste anyway. Most of the members of this forum are not able to produce "optimally" grown bananas even if they wanted to. All that is still aside from the fact that flavor preference is a very subjective thing and it cannot be right or wrong, it's just an opinion. Trends of general preference may still be observed, however, and it is the case with 'Veinte Cohol' that I hear more reviews of it being less-than-stellar anyway. So, thank you Rob for taking the time to share your experience.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Nicolas Naranja

There is probably a good bit of research that could be published trying to establish the concept of terroir for bananas. If you could get maybe 6 or 7 varieties and produce them in several climates, several seasons, and several different production systems you might get to some of the underlying factors of what makes a banana taste good. If you look at the published reports of taste tests around the world, there doesn't seem to be a clear leader.

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Some people go bananas, I went plantains.

Botanical_Bryce

A banana is better than none

Julian

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meizzwang

back to the topic of Veinte Cohol Taste reports, I found another one here: 'Veinte Cohol' bananas are ripe, 2 months later.

Speaking of taste tests, I tried for the first time ever a Dwarf Cavendish, which I remember reading that someone said it tastes similar to store bought bananas (aka nothing special). The dwarf cavendish plant was grown at UC Davis (in a greenhouse in California), and the plant looked horrible: totally nutrient stressed, covered in thrips and a few mealy bugs, not beautiful. The bananas were very small, maybe 4-5" long and 2" wide, and they looked horrible, but they were allowed to ripen "on the vine." The taste? OUT OF THIS WORLD! There was a strong berry and slight floral undertone to the flavor, like nothing I've ever had before. Texture was similar to store bought bananas. Easily the best I've ever had in my life.

Keeping temperature, light and water the same, the type of nutrients you give a plant seems to play a huge role on flavor. For example, I've tried tomatoes grown in "dirt" with just fertilizer, and they're sweet but very bland. Take the same cultivar, grown in the same field, same watering regime, but with the soil amended with composted organic waste (with lots of mycorrhiza), and add organic sources of phosophorous/potassium.... that same tomato had a robust, rich flavor. No reason why bananas shouldn't behave similarly.