The Kentucky State University Land Grant Program, the Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association, and the PawPaw Foundation held a Pawpaw Workshop on Saturday, September 6, 2008 at the Kentucky State University Research and Demonstration Farm in Frankfort, Kentucky. Eighty-seven people attended the workshop to share information about the production and uses of pawpaw. There were poster and oral presentations concerning progress in pawpaw variety trials, management of orchards, storing and handling fruit, the nutritional value of the fruit, marketing pawpaw, and tours of the KSU orchards.
A pawpaw variety taste test was also held at the Pawpaw Workshop. Ripe fruit (soft) were hand harvested in the KSU orchards two days before the tasting event and were kept at room temperature to fully ripen the fruit prior to the taste test. This was a blind test; the participants did not know which pawpaw variety they tasted. An evaluation sheet was handed out to the participants and slices of the pawpaw varieties (which were only labeled with a number and not the variety) were available in small cups on a table. Sixteen pawpaw selections were included in the tasting. Eight selections were offered in the morning and eight more in the afternoon. Participants were not required to taste all the selections; therefore, some people may have only tasted a subset of the selections. The selections 10-35 and 3-21 are advanced selections from the PawPaw Foundation breeding effort and G9-108 and Jeremy's Gold are KSU selections. The results were tabulated at the end of the tasting event. Here are the results:
| Flavor | ||||||||
| Selection | 1 Awful | 2 Poor | 3 Fair | 4 Good | 5 Excellent | Average rating | Melon aftertaste | Bitter aftertaste |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegheny | 0 | 0 | 4 | 19 | 23 | 4.41 | 9 | 2 |
| G9-108 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 12 | 22 | 4.40 | 10 | 2 |
| 10-35 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 19 | 19 | 4.36 | 10 | 3 |
| Shenandoah | 0 | 0 | 7 | 16 | 16 | 4.23 | 12 | 7 |
| NC-1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 16 | 15 | 4.16 | 9 | 4 |
| Potomac | 0 | 0 | 6 | 22 | 12 | 4.15 | 10 | 5 |
| Taytwo | 1 | 1 | 4 | 24 | 13 | 4.09 | 9 | 12 |
| Susquehanna | 0 | 1 | 13 | 13 | 16 | 4.02 | 10 | 8 |
| Wabash | 1 | 0 | 11 | 19 | 14 | 4.00 | 10 | 6 |
| Sunflower | 0 | 2 | 10 | 16 | 13 | 3.98 | 7 | 8 |
| Overleese | 0 | 2 | 15 | 15 | 11 | 3.81 | 15 | 5 |
| Wilson | 0 | 4 | 11 | 18 | 8 | 3.73 | 7 | 9 |
| Jeremy's Gold | 0 | 6 | 13 | 19 | 6 | 3.57 | 7 | 16 |
| 3-21 | 1 | 4 | 13 | 21 | 4 | 3.53 | 2 | 13 |
| PA Golden | 2 | 4 | 18 | 11 | 7 | 3.40 | 8 | 12 |
| Mitchell | 1 | 16 | 12 | 12 | 3 | 3.00 | 3 | 15 |
The number of people giving a rating for a pawpaw selection from awful to excellent (1 to 5) is listed in each column. The tasting results must be viewed with caution. The tasting was not held under controlled conditions (not everyone tasted every selection, color of the pulp was not adjusted for the taster so that it was not a factor with red or other color of light, many