Bing Cherries
Bing cherries have that classic, heart-shape that most cherries exhibit. Their skin is smooth and shiny with a deep red to maroon coloring. The firm yet juicy interior has a snappy crunch and is intensely sweet and tangy (considered by most to be the ultimate cherry for both flavor and texture). Bing cherries are available mid-summer and are best suited for eating, canning and freezing.
Rainier Cherries {coming in 2020}
Rainier cherries distinguish themselves from all other cherry varieties by the color of their skin and their unparalleled high sugar levels. Their coloring exhibits layers of golden hues blushed with tones of pink and red, an unequivocally unique facade. Their shape is quintessential cherry: plump, rounded and slightly heart-shaped with a dimple at the stem end. The flesh is a pale golden color with red streaks near the skin and seed. The flavor of Rainier cherries is memorably sweet and low acid with a caramel-like finish on the palate.
Early Robin {coming in 2020}
Early Robin looks set to become an important variety in the Pacific Northwest, as growers try to get a jump on the blushed-cherry deal. The Rainier cherry now makes up about 10 percent of the Northwest cherry crop. Early Robin is a blush cherry that looks similar to Rainier but ripens one to two weeks earlier. It is being marketed as an early Rainier-type cherry. The variety was discovered in about 1990 by Robin Doty, who noticed that fruit on one tree in his Rainier cherry orchard at Mattawa, Washington, matured seven to ten days earlier than other trees in the block. The fruit was large, firm, and sweet, and had a heart-shaped appearance, a mild flavor, and a semifreestone pit, unlike typical Rainier cherries.