'Niagara Black' AKA 'Longue d'Aout'
‘Niagara Black’ is more commonly referred
to as ‘Longue d’Aout’, a common cold
hardy French fig whose name translates to “Long of August”. This variety is
known for producing a somewhat unique breba crop whose fruit is medium to large
and exceptionally long as opposed to its main crop; smaller, shorter, and more round
than long. 2023 will be the third or fourth year in
ground and even more special, this is the first season it produced a crop. I
was hoping I’d get to try some brebas but instead I was gifted a wonderful main
crop for the first time and I thought a few things were worth mentioning here.
I
found the growth to be semi-vigorous and
the crop set to be mostly precocious, setting fruit at almost every node.
The size of the figs from the main
crop were small to medium sized and although this tree hasn’t produced a breba
crop yet, it’s capable of producing two
crops in our short season climate. I find this to be a positive trait when
choosing a variety for the Puget Sound region because this means the fruit will
ripen over a longer period of time.
Being an early ripening variety, ‘Niagara Black’ was able to ripen most of
its main crop before the rainy season started, however, once the rain did set
in most of the figs within a few days of ripening lost a lot of their flavor because
of the slightly open and exposed eye.
This can cause issues when it rains but the tree is young and may end up
ripening fruit earlier in the season as it gets older. With that said, this
variety does a good job bridging the ripening gap between ‘Archipel’ and
‘Conadria’. At first bite what comes to mind is a rush of sugary sweetness quickly followed up with a noticeable berry profile and honey undertones that sit in the background. The seed crunch is light and enjoyable with a thin skin that’s soft and peels if you brush it the wrong way. When I think about the textures of the interior what comes to mind is a light amount of honey or syrup and a whole lot of jam. The inside of this fig is as beautiful as it tasted with gradient pinks to reds and ambers. When you slice one of these figs open you can see the sweet glossy syrup that coats all of these beautiful colors. The exterior the fig presents itself with a brown undercoat as it ripens and depending on how much sun the tree gets a dark shade of a transparent like purple can develop sometimes covering anywhere from half to the entire fig.
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