Apparently, this week on Slog is all about apples.

When someone offers you free apples, you accept, happily and without delay, especially when they’re sold as the “successor to the Honeycrisp” and have a name like Rave® and are actually grown in our state, which does apples so well. These are from Stemilt Growers in Wenatchee; their other signature varieties include the aforementioned Honeycrisp, and normie apples like the Gala, Piñata, and Pink Lady. The Rave® is one-part Honeycrisp, one part MonArk.

Rave® apples are currently available at Seattle QFCs, and according to the rep from the marketing agency who reached out to me, they’re first to come off the trees, so they are extra, extra fresh—but will only be available until the first or second week of September. Six out of six* of us loved them (although one was my baby), nary a disbeliever among us. And they came in this fancy completely excessive packaging:

This might be The Stranger's first unboxing video. We apologize.

Katie Herzog: Very tart, slightly sour, excellent mouthfeel, and it didn't break my fake teeth when I bit into it. 4 stars.

Nathalie Graham: Wow, this is juicy. It has a great crunch. Do you hear that? This apple is perfect for ASMR videos. Just listen! *bites apple close into our ear* Really, a strong crunch!

Chase Burns: I think this is the best apple I've ever had—really! But I bit my lip and started bleeding all over it. That's my fault, not the apple's, but any apple that makes you bleed is an apple worth remembering.

Rich Smith: The apple tastes like green grapes. It retains the juiciness of its ancestor, the Honey Crisp, but trades depth of flavor for a touch more brightness. It would make an excellent bong.

Me: I could smell them through the box. The first bite—an explosion of flavor all up in my mouth. The color—a light, rosy red. Not tempting to Snow White, but a soft, easy-on-the-eyes shade with a yellowy-gold spot. It had a sour zing like a Granny Smith that I wasn’t expecting but loved, and the same crunchy quality of a Honeycrisp. I want to rave about it, but is that too obvious for a Rave® apple? In sum, 100 percent yum.

I took the rest home to share with the baby. She tried to take a bite, it was too big for her mouth—her tiny front teeth only shaved off a scrap. So I cut her a few pieces. The first one she chewed up, but the pieces fell out when she gave me an open-mouthed smile. The second and third bites went down fine. She didn’t offer any feedback (she doesn’t really talk yet), but her swallowing them was a good sign.

*Charles Mudede also had an apple, except he ate it alone. When he returned, he announced that fruit is the only moral food—a cabbage does not ask to be eaten, you must steal it—and that the apple was great. Juicy!