Washington Apple Country Tours, www.washingtonapplecountry.com, offers the chance to discover “all about apples.” This apple tour offers a blend of educational and agricultural fun, including a visit to a working apple orchard to learn about the growing process and watch an antique packing line in action. Tours may be customized to your group. Other activities include an orchard hayride complete with caramel apples or apple pie. For more information, contact 1-866-459-9614 or 1-509-782-3564. For more information on farm tours www.visitwashingtonfarms.com.
Interactive exhibits and a video at Washington’s Fruit Place in Yakima show visitors why our state harvests the best orchard fruit in the country. Visitors play the part of an insect to learn how farmers control pests, use a refractometer to test the apple’s sugar content, sort apples, sample fresh fruit and juice, and learn where Washington tree fruit is shipped. For information on this hour-long tour, call the visitor center 509-576-3090.
If you thirst for fresh cider, visit the Orondo Cider Works, www.orondociderworks.com, where visitors can watch it being made and sample the freshly pressed cider. Using fresh-from-the-tree apples, pears and other fruits, the cider press blends the fruit to bring out their bright crisp flavors. Relax on the porch with your fresh cider or a frosty cider slushie and a hot donut made by the “donut robot.” For information, call 509-784-1029.
Chelan Fruit Apple Packing Factory is the largest farmer-owned apple co-operative in the nation. Custom 30- to 60-minute tours showcase the orchard-to-warehouse process and packing plant stations and include a 12-minute video presentation. Watch as apples are first sorted through the “eye” of a computer which grades size, shape, and color density. Then workers continue the selection, and finally the tour follows the sorted apples through the packing process. Call 509-682-2591.