Atago pears, like other Asian pears, are usually picked fully ripe from the trees and shipped fully ripe to the stores. The best test of ripeness with an Atago pear is to smell it: it should have a sweet scent. You can’t go by texture, as Atago pears, like other Asian Pears, will always be crisp regardless of what state of ripeness they are at. Brown spots can indicate that a pear is past ripeness. One or two are okay, but five or more brown spots can mean that it’s very over ripe, or bruised.
If you are picking an Atago pear from a tree and want to select a ripe one, choose only the pears that come off the branches easily.
The Atago tree saves growers a bit of work, because unlike most other Asian pears, they don’t have to thin some of the young fruit off the tree to allow room for the remaining fruit to grow big: Atago will produce large pears even without that winnowing.
Atago trees get pollinated by Hosui and Olympic Asian pear trees.
Storage Hints
Store in fridge for up to 4 months.