The prima donna of fruit

The prima donna of fruit

The most popular apple in America is a diva, one farmer told The Wall Street Journal. It's the most finicky fruit around.

The Honeycrisp apple has all the right moves: super sweet, a thin skin, and very crisp. A treat!

But that glamorous treat is high maintenance.

The thin skin allows for punctures; farmers have to cut each fruit by hand. It just hates to hang around in storage and bruises easily. Each little celebrity demands farmers wrap them in a small coat of reflective sheeting until it will don its red-pink hue. And it requires regular checkups for disease.

But it has become the apple of our eye, outselling all Delicious varieties, Gala, Granny Smith, and Fuji.