Large melons in 2021

 On July 31 I harvested and tasted three different melons, Mirza (from Uzbekistan), Prima (Russian selection), and Mashhad (from Iran).

Prima was the largest melon on that day at 8.1 kg.

The melon was sweet, but the flavor was too bland for me and the texture was kind of mushy. The flesh is white. I didn’t like this fruit at all.

Mirza was the second largest fruit with this half weighing over 3.6 kg. It was probably close to 7 kg for the whole fruit.

The flesh is very sweet, aromatic, and melting. This is an excellent melon.

 Mashhad fruit was the smallest this time, but these fruits can also be very large. Here it is under 5 kg.

Mashhad flesh has a green tint. It is very crisp, sweet, and aromatic. It has a nice creamy-vanilla or creme brûlée flavor. 

The flavor varies between different fruits and may depend on the ripening stage and the weather pattern during ripening. The best fruits have some creme brûlée flavor as I described earlier. 

In the image below, the bottom slice is Prima, the left ones are Mirza, and the right ones are Mashhad. Mirza and Mashhad were excellent melons in this tasting. They are very different and it’s hard to choose the best from these two.

On August 7, I tasted more fruits of these three cultivars and also an Afghani melon. 

Prima:

Mirza (front) and Mashhad (back):

Mirza cut (left and front), Mashhad (upper right):

Afghani:

Cut Afghani:

Cut Mashhad:

My favorites from the August 7 tasting were the same, Mirza and Mashhad. The Afghani melon was crunchy and not very sweet. I didn’t care for Prima. However, I sent the halves of the same fruits I tasted to a group of friends to try, and their preferences were different. 

In this box, left to right: Afghani, Mirza, Prima, Mashhad.

They rated them in the following order starting from the best: Mirza, Prima, Afghani, Mashhad. I was very surprised by their grading, which confirmed that we have different taste buds.