Apples worth finding

SIR – Pauline Hay (Letters, September 30) is right. Worcester apples are vanishing. We should be clear that this delicious apple is the Worcester Pearmain and not Tydemans Early Worcester, which does not have the same delightful nose and taste.

The reasons are threefold. First of all the yield of this apple falls short of other varieties grown today, so it is much more expensive to produce. Secondly, supermarket buyers simply do not understand that it needs to be picked and eaten in less than two weeks for the customer to experience its incomparable flavour.

Finally, it has been displaced by Discovery, Britain’s earliest apple, which is sadly not in the same league.

We grow about 20 tons of organic Worcesters, picked about a month ago. We need a supermarket to take them and treat them as a premium-priced delicacy only available for a month. They and their customers will be rewarded. John Atkins

Blean, Canterbury SIR – Worcesters are flourishing here. We had a beautiful crop this year, sold to supermarkets and widely available. Christina Budd

Hawkhurst, Kent

SIR – We eagerly await the ripening, in early November, of the apple, D’arcy Spice. First found in the 19th century in the gardens of Tolleshunt D’arcy Hall, it has a unique flavour and is perfect to eat or cook until past January.

An Essex triumph, it is also the forename of our granddaughter. Barry Bond

Leigh-on-sea, Essex