The species name for sweet cherry, avium, refers to birds, the agents largely responsible for the distribution of the seed and therefore the spread of both species.
Sweet cherries are best eaten fresh. Fruit types have either dark red skin and flesh or yellow skin with a pink blush and yellow flesh.
As sweet cherry is not post-ripening fruit, it is harvested at full ripeness. Fresh consumption and export requires handpicked cherries.
It is known that sweet cherries have various antioxidants and its major phenolic antioxidants are anthocyanins, phenolic acids, flavonoids and flavan-3-ols (catechins).
Cherries probably originated in the Caucasus Mountains and other parts of Asia Minor and spread westwards into Europe due to seed dropping birds.
In North America, most of the fresh market sweet cherry production is in the Pacific Northwest. The wild sweet cherry, Prunus avium, was the ancestor of today’s sweet cherries, which fall into two groups: Bigarreau and Guignes.
The history of sweet cherry
