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Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

While I don't have knowledge of Italy or Kiwi, here in my US state of Georgia this year our watermelon has been extremely good. Very sweet and big melons. Much better than any year in recent memory.

I was listening to some journalism on the subject and the farmers association promoting this produce claimed it was due to a very good growing season with no freezes or bad weather and that conditions remained ideal for basically the entire season, which almost never happens.

Perhaps the quality of flavor of the kiwi is just affected by the climate and soil.

Another example more relevant to Italy might be the D.O.P. canned marzano tomatoes, which have unique flavors due to the soil and climate they are grown in in Italy.

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>Another example more relevant to Italy might be the D.O.P. canned marzano tomatoes, which have unique flavors due to the soil and climate they are grown in in Italy.

Yep, and you should taste them before they are being put inside the cans ...

It's the concept of "Terroir":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir

The same crops acquire very specific characteristics based on the geographical location they are planted.

I never tried salad tomatoes as sweet and flavorful as those I used to eat as a kid in Sicily...

> Perhaps the quality of flavor of the kiwi is just affected by the climate and soil.

That's almost certainly what is happening, unless they have some separate cultivar that was bred to better withstand the Italian climate where they are grown, which is also quite possible.

Berries are an easy one to compare this effect to in North America - you can often tell the difference between a good growing year and a bad one from strawberries, which prefer hot springs and early summers with little rain, and will taste differently if they get cold temperatures and a very wet spring.

Source: grew up in farm country, have picked single cultivar source berries for preserves/freezing/eating for many years.

San Marzano tomatoes, the exact name, are the most well known of the relatively few varieties that have the appropriate shape and size to be canned (as you are stuffing a fixed number of Whole tomatoes in a can, shape and size is very important) and they are really good for canning only in a limited part of the South, e.g. near Caserta.

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