Pineapple (Fresh) Flavor-TFA

Pineapple (Fresh) (TPA) 4.5% (10-26-25) – Typically most pineapples I’ve tested fall into 4 categories: Fresh/Natural, Candied/Sugared, Baked/Browned, Juice. This one seemed to straddle 2, almost 3. It had a very good fresh, yellow pineapple taste, with a hint of juice, and some baked/browned notes. It was interesting, because it was fairly complex. The juicy natural notes were impressive and realistic, with some brighter juice notes in there. From the middle and through the finish, it had some nice (unexpected) slightly darker, maybe baked notes. While not truly baked, that was just an approximation, but it was almost like fresh pineapple with some golden syrup notes. At 4.5% it was nicely strong, with some punchy, bright notes, and I’d rate it about an 8.5/10 on the strength scale. Sweetness levels were a little tricky to quantify, because the initial onrush and middle tasted fairly sweet, but the finish did not. Very interesting. It was almost like it COULD benefit from a dash more sweetness, and I finally decided on a just below mid-level sweet. No off notes, slight if any “funky-ness”, and no real complaints. Typically I prefer a much punchier/brighter Pineapple, and my current to go is VTA’s Sugarloaf, for comparison. I think my only “want” would have been for a little more sweetener, and some more of the brighter, punchier top end notes. Even sans that, it was a very good pineapple, which was mostly natural with some slight sugared, artificial notes, and was complex-if-ied with some bright, mid, and dark notes. Leaving this one fairly high at a 9/10.