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I got some made-in-store supermarket guacamole yesterday and it was a new low in bland, watery, flavorless avocado meat.

I have read that the reason modern avocadoes taste bland is because they use a variety called a "Hass" avocado that growers prefer because it is resistant to some kinds of blight and it does not spoil as readily as other varieties.

Nevertheless, as someone who remembers as a boy getting avocadoes that tasted like, well, avocadoes and actually having good guacamole, it is really discouraging the world takeover of this tasteless drone avocado called the Hass. Also, it seems the Hass itself seems to be getting more bland and more watery year by year.

Is there any way to get good avocado varieties of the old type that actually taste good, or have they gone the way of the Dodo?

(I should mention that I grew up in San Diego, but now live in Massachusetts so this might be part of the problem; good avocadoes might only be available locally in Southern California.)

Update

By some further research I have found that apparently large numbers of avocadoes are being exported by Peru, and even though they are Hass avocadoes they are reputedly MUCH more bland than California avocadoes, but also much cheaper. So, this might be the problem, I am getting Peruvian avocadoes.

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    CA is in the midst of a drought. Haven't seen a good avocado from there all year. However, before the local Mexican market burned down, they were getting Mexican grown avocados the size of softballs that'd make your mouth water for more; cheap too! Look to the ethnic stores, you may get lucky. – Wayfaring Stranger Sep 27 '15 at 21:10
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    Good tropical fruit in Massachusetts is a rarity on all fronts. Picked underripe and shipped long distances does not ever compare well with picked at/near ripe from the farm up the road. Sometimes we see halfway decent Mexican or Florida avocados. Halfway decent is about as good as it gets. – Ecnerwal Sep 27 '15 at 21:31
  • This seems to be upside down. People are recommending the Fuerte - well known for being watery and lacking in taste - over the buttery rich Hass! – user66267 Apr 3 '18 at 19:56
  • The CA and Mexico droughts look to be easing. CA lost a lot of trees in fires, but the avocadoes coming into the stores look to be returning to normal size, and if allowed to ripen, are quite tasty. – Wayfaring Stranger Apr 4 '18 at 0:08
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You're exactly right in figuring out that part of the problem is having grown up with some of the world's best avocadoes, and then moving up North where decent avocadoes are scarce! :) Tasty avocadoes aren't all going the way of the dodo just yet, but you might have to move to Texas or Florida, or check some Mexican markets in your area, to get better avocadoes.

My husband lived in S Calif. as a child. He is an avocado connoisseur like you, as a result. Some of the best S Cali avocadoes are 'Fuerte' variety, which is more flavorful and creamier than Hass. We live in Texas and we get some very good, tasty Mexican avocadoes here- which by the way, are Hass.

But every single avocado I've brought home to hubby, whether from Mexico, Chile, Florida, Arizona, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Guatemala or Peru, ends up being compared unfavorably to those great S Calif. avocados he remembers. We visited a relative in the S Calif. area about 4.5 years ago and hubby had a delicious, fresh S Cali 'Fuerte' variety avocado during that trip--an avocado which he still recalls most fondly.

Personally I tried that same S Cali 'Fuerte' avocado too on that trip and while it was a bit tastier than the Hass avocadoes we currently get in Texas, I didn't find the flavor all THAT much better! But hubby did prefer it a lot; he likes what he was raised on. Also his palate is more sensitive to bitterness than mine and 'Fuerte' is less bitter than Hass. In recent years, Calif. drought has made the delicious Cali avocadoes, especially the 'Fuerte', nearly impossible to get.

By the way- I lived in Illinois for a while. That state has the same avocado problem as Massachusetts: too far away from where good avocadoes and other tropical fruits are grown, to get avocadoes with decent quality. Whatever does survive the shipping journey that far North is usually picked much too green. Around the holidays such as Christmas and 16 de Septiembre and 5 de Mayo etc., there was ONE Mexican food store in Chicago that got some fresh, air-flown ripe Mexican avocadoes for sale just for these special days..at $5 each!

Mom who was raised in Texas was desperate for a good avocado because they are almost nonexistent in Chicago, so she bought 2 of those $5 avocados for Christmas dinner and said it was worth it. I had a small taste in my salad, it was great but geez $5 a piece LOL! I'm real glad we left Chicago and moved to Texas soon after that!

I wouldn't count on S. California's avocado crop doing well anytime in the near future, as that area is likely to only have worse and worse water shortages and drought problems as time goes forward.

So perhaps, sadly, the 'Fuerte' avocadoes and the other delicious S Cali avocadoes you were raised on are going the way of the dodo. I hope not because they are very good avocadoes and it's always nice to be able to get USA grown tropical fruits. But unless some amazing advances in water and climate management are made to save the Cali avocado farms from extinction, your delicious S Cali grown avocadoes may become nothing more than a fond memory.

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  • A Good Florida avocado is a smooth skinned thing of joy, but they don't age well, and are extremely rare, mid-continent. – Wayfaring Stranger Apr 4 '18 at 0:13
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In my experience, having lived in San Diego and Hawaii, the old flavorful and buttery Hass avocado has gone extinct due to being hybridized with the watery avocados that ripen and are available in the winter. These days, what looks like a warty black skinned Hass has the insipid insides of a watery avocado. Nowhere can the original Hass buttery and flavorful avocado be found. Those imposters are the only avocados you will find in the markets anymore, sadly, unless you live in Santa Barbara and frequent the farmers markets where a few old buttery varieties may still be available.

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  • In this town avocadoes still say Hass, and when you can get them for less than 3$ apiece, are still tasty upon ripening. OTOH, the jalapenos are all TAM fakes. Might as well get a bell pepper. – Wayfaring Stranger Apr 4 '18 at 0:10

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