00:00:00 John Daub: Every year I go to the supermarket and have this dilemma. Do you pick the luscious, delicious American cherry? Or do you go for the Japanese cherry? It has a more jewel-like red color. Even the stems are a different color. It's a very hard choice, but it might be made easier based on the price.

00:00:29 John Daub: How you doing everybody? Today we're trying Japanese versus American cherries. I think in taste it's going to be quite different, but in price, that's where things get a little bit different. And joining us is Kanae Daub. We're working on the Postcard Club for the Postcard Club members, by the way.

00:00:49 John Daub: All right, already we got people who are writing in, "I like the American ones." Well, how do you know? Have you even tried the Japanese ones? What is most striking with the Japanese cherries is the color. Look at it. We're going to examine some of these because I've never seen these in the United States. I remember growing up as a kid, I loved cherries. I would just plop them in my mouth one after the other. They're so sweet. But the Japanese cherry is different. Why do they make different kinds of cherries? Is it because Japanese people have different flavors? And how are these American cherries so big? Is it GMO? Most of the cherries that come from America to Japan are from Washington State and they have some amazing dessert cherries. Look at this thing. It's beautiful. I just washed it.

00:01:57 John Daub: So let's try these and see which one is better and then we'll give you some information on cherries because the show has to be informational. The price was different, right? Here the label says the Japanese cherries are this amount, which is pretty crazy. This was about $5 for just this. And this, which is I think four times the weight, was about ten dollars. Japanese cherries are always more expensive. It's crazy expensive.

00:03:15 Kanae Daub: The Japanese cherries are predominantly from Yamagata Prefecture. Yamagata is a prefecture in the Tohoku region. They make 70 percent of the Japanese cherries. You can actually get a box of cherries from Yamagata for twenty-five or several hundred dollars because the cherries are perfect. It's just like all the other fruits in Japan. You can get a mango that costs $5,000, a melon that costs $25,000, although this year it was a lot less because not a lot of people went to the auction. Too bad for the melon industry. But cherries are much prized in Japan.

00:03:57 John Daub: It started in the Meiji era. This cherry variety came by a German trader named Richard Gärtner [?]. He introduced cherries to Japan. The cultivation was tested throughout Japan over several years, but most areas failed due to the lack of cherry knowledge. If you're not like Johnny Appleseed, this guy who went across America just throwing seeds all over the place—he'd probably be in big trouble if Johnny Appleseed were doing that in the 21st century. But back then the Japanese didn't know how to cultivate cherries. So it stunk, sort of like the wine industry, but the Japanese wine is getting better. However, in 1876, when cherry seedlings imported from countries including America and France were planted in Yamagata by the Ministry of Home Affairs, it was found that the climate and natural features perfectly matched those needed for cherry production. Yamagata Prefecture has the perfect weather for cherry production because the prefecture has relatively little frost and bears negligible damage from typhoons. Following the success, private organizations and governments cooperated to spread cherries throughout Yamagata Prefecture. Yamagata Prefecture is one of the most famous for cherries in Japan.

00:05:54 John Daub: Let's weigh these things here. Hey there, we got some new members. Welcome aboard. Michael Hardy, an Insider. All right, let's see how much this weighs. Turn the scale towards you because you can see it better. The plastic is negligible. That's 100 grams. So about 90 grams for $5? That's more expensive than Wagyu beef. That's crazy. And this was $10. That's a good 434 grams. So this is over four times the weight. 100 yen equals $1. Four times the weight. That's how crazy expensive Japanese cherries are. It's insane, right? But look at the colors. Now, the question is, seven minutes in this live stream, how's the taste?

00:07:04 John Daub: Kanae, you want to go ahead and taste this? The cherry challenge is on the way. This is the Japanese cherry, right? Yeah, we say sakuranbo (Japanese cherry).

00:07:15 Kanae Daub: Sakuranbo.

00:07:19 John Daub: Try the sakuranbo. Tasty. American cherry.

00:07:29 Kanae Daub: Oh, there's a seed in there? Yeah, the tane (seed). USA. Which one? Wait. Okay, got to wait. Don't pressure the lady. Let her chew. Wow. Which one? Interesting. Okay, wait. Actually, I like Japanese sakuranbo normally. I like Japanese cherry more than American cherry. But this time, this American cherry is sweeter. Sweeter than this.

00:08:29 John Daub: Go America! America wins! Today, I like this one. Is it because of the pressure I gave you? Or the crazy eyes? But normally, I like Japanese sakuranbo, Japanese cherry because it's softer. Softer? I never even considered that to be a criteria, the softness of the cherry. Interesting. It's softer and it's sweet. But this American cherry, you bought it. It's actually very sweet. It's a good one. That was 10 bucks for that little Washington cherry. Jim is from Washington. Jim, you send us some cherries, please. Uncle Sam sent these.

00:09:15 Kanae Daub: You can try.

00:09:17 John Daub: If you like luxury fruits, click the like button. Because if this doesn't get like a thousand likes, I'm not doing any more luxury fruits. Forget it. I'm just kidding. I'm always going to do it. I'm going to start with the American cherry because I'm American. And she started with the Japanese cherry because she's Japanese.

00:10:14 John Daub: The American cherries, they're a little bit harder. When you bite into them, there's a crunch to them. I like that. There's some tension with the skin. These are softer. The first thing I noticed when I compare the two cherries is that these are smaller. Each one is smaller. And I prefer the bigger ones because there's more biting to it. It might just be me or it could be genetically modified cherries. I don't know. But they do come from Washington State. These are obviously sweeter. But you know what? The thing is with this cherry, there's something different about the taste of it. It has a better balance. These are so sweet. These cherries, according to Bicolored L, these are obese cherries, I guess. These are softer, but there's something sophisticated about the taste. Japan doesn't have a lot of GMO stuff, but they have not as sweet of a taste. It's just different. There's a different acidity to them. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful color. Look, it's shining. The inside of the cherry is completely different. It looks more like a grape. This one looks like a mini tomato or something. The American cherries are more acidic. I can taste more of the acidity of the American cherries. This is a different acidity level. I think the Japanese cherries are also softer on your stomach. You can taste the red wine sometimes because I think that the red wine has some sort of properties that's better than white wine. And color is important. And this color, this super deep red, I think is good for the body. It's just a gut feeling. Cherries are the perfect dessert. I think there's some tannins in here. That's why people in Washington State, they're in pretty good shape, I think.

00:14:18 John Daub: Did you try, have you ever tried sakuranbo cherry from Yamagata? Sato Nishiki? Yeah, I've tried the Sato Nishiki. Damn, they're very, very sweet. It's a different kind of sweetness. Yeah, it's really good. These Washington cherries are more like tarty, like a tart sweetness to it. I like them both, but I have to say probably American cherries. I'm very patriotic when it comes to my cherries and apples. I like Japanese apples, but American apples are really good too.

00:15:02 John Daub: Kspraydad, welcome as a traveler. That's awesome. Trickress is here. She's sweeter than cherries. Long time no see, Trickress. By the way, if you are a traveler, you have access to emoji. Show Kanae. Kanae has not seen this yet. Can anyone show Kanae the Kanae emoji? Yeah, I made a Kanae emoji. She doesn't even know. Look, that's Kanae.

00:15:47 Kanae Daub: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

00:15:50 John Daub: Nasha Broad went crazy with that one. This is so funny. UFO Bob, how dare you put that mask there? That's the Johnny mask. That's funny. So in general, I wanted to keep the stream really short. Everybody just to share a little bit with you because I bought these here. American cherries versus Japanese cherries. Which one do you think that you would like based on our description? Do you have any questions on the description? Was there something that you think that we didn't miss? I like both. Yeah, I like both too, but if you have to pick one, that's the question. Which one would you pick? A lot of people are saying, I have a sweet tooth, so American. The firmness of it.

00:17:10 John Daub: I was looking at the statistics here. Russia produces the most sour cherries. In the United States, most sweet cherries are grown in Washington State, which are the ones that come to Japan. California, sometimes we get California cherries. Oregon, Wisconsin, and Michigan, those are the places with the sweet cherries. Important sweet cherries cultivars include the Bing cherry, the Ulster cherry, the Rainier cherry, Brooks cherry, Tulare cherry, King cherry, and the Sweetheart cherry. Both Oregon and Michigan provide light colored Royal Anne or Queen Anne type of cherries. And the Maraschino cherry, which is used in cocktails, comes from Oregon and Michigan mostly. Most sour cherries, called tart cherries, are grown in Michigan, followed by Utah, New York, and Washington. Sours include Nanking and Evans cherries. I didn't know there were so many varieties of them. There's a national cherry festival including the making of the world's largest cherry pie, and I love cherry pie. Specific regions of northern Michigan known for tart cherry production is referred to as Traverse Bay region. Turkey leads in sweet cherry production. Incredible. America is number two. Turkey produces over 20% of the world's cherries. I've never had a Turkish cherry. I had no idea. America produces 330,000 tons. Turkey produces 445,000 tons. Iran, Spain, Italy, Chile, Romania, Uzbekistan, Russia and Greece round out the top 10. Japan isn't even there. The world produces 2.25 million tons of cherries. Not enough. I could eat most of those if I had the chance.

00:19:56 John Daub: Black cherries are best in the USA. Would these be considered black cherries? Because they are very deep. We've never had black cherries in Japan. We have these deep red cherries and we have the Japanese cherries. But we've never seen like black forest black cherries. They're very famous in Germany. The black forest cake and things like this. I like to take the pit and put the trash can across the room and try to throw them in the trash can, but I miss more than not and she doesn't get happy. It's expected. It's when I miss, I hear about it.

00:21:05 John Daub: Thanks guys for watching. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below. Click the like button if you want to see more luxury fruits. Thanks for hanging out with us. These live streams are a little longer. There's been complaints. Why can't you make the live streams shorter? It's because half of the people just got the notifications. Patreon is where they all go. But I'll see you later.

00:21:41 John Daub: You want to show Cherry for the last 20 seconds? Where do we get cherry pie, Kanae? I want to get some cherry pie. Wow, it's too close. This is like Godzilla size. Whoa.