Baskets of apples collected from Mary and James’s orchard of traditional varieties are made into juice in their kitchen. The yellow sack and sugar, scarlet duchess’s favourite, striped Herefordshire pippin, red flushed miller’s seedling and Norfolk royal are ripe, glossy and non-split, beneficiaries of the unusually sunny summer and timely succession of rain.
A mixture of these sweet and slightly acidic fruits is quartered and tipped into the “scratter”, whose driving wheel is hand-turned to allow further chopping into a juicy mush for the press. After screwing down, each crushing flows with around half a gallon of juice; four pressings fill 12 bottles to be stood neck-high in the boiler for pasteurisation before caps are tightened. Dried-up residue (the pomace) will be dumped on to the compost heap, where it will help break down discarded weeds and leafy and twiggy material.
These early apples taste good but do not store; the delicious, hard-won juice will keep for two years, as well as adding to Mary and James’s research into the characteristics and tastiness of this diverse fruit. Earlier, a single pressing of pendragon produced a mere four bottles of beetroot-coloured liquid. With its dark red skin and flesh, this apple was named after the former rectory garden in Stoke Climsland, where it was found; it is thought to be a natural apple related to the wild Malus pumila niedzwetzkyana from the Tian Shan mountains, which border China and Kazakhstan. The juice is slightly bitter, full of anthocyanins – an elixir to be taken daily.
Abundant apples are also ready for gathering in the National Trust’s mother orchard, planted at Cotehele 11 years ago. At home, recent paring permits access into our older overgrown orchard. Apart from the banana pippin, the usual early yellow apples such as venus pippin and manaccan primrose are sparse; I will need supplements gleaned from my sister and brother-in-law’s orchard before venturing to the commercial, more mechanised juice producer near Halton Quay. From there, set above the purple flowers of reed beds beside the tidal Tamar, the proprietor reports that he is overwhelmed with boxes and bags of apples brought in by customers, awaiting his laborious skill in transforming the bumper harvest into bottles of juice.
