We've received Harry & David gifts in the past and - if you're expecting exotic fruits - you'll be very disappointed. The presentation is beautiful, but getting 5 under-ripe pears wrapped in gold foil does not seem worth the $50 (including shipping) cost.

Most of their fruit really seems just slightly above grocery store quality (though I do live in California, so our fruit is good). The varieties may sound special, but they're often just a branded version of a common citrus, apple, or pear.

You may not be eating it correctly

Pears are fruits that ripe after being picked from the tree. The photos in the web look like Decana pears, that are known universally as one of the top varieties of common pear.

Freshly picked from the tree are just hard and sweet, nothing special, but wait some days and wow... When the skin starts to feel soft at the touch, the flesh melts like butter and the juice drips from your mouth.

Is annoying to culture (must be pollinated carefully and the steams take strange directions that made it difficult to prune correctly), but is royalty in the pear world.

If yours were from that variety you should give it a second try, wait to middle of summer and taste one in their prime. Is just a pear, but it offers all that one can expect from a pear.

Yup, confirmed, the pears sold in the web aren't the old decana de comice but a close variety in the same group of comice pears.

Therefore a fruit that plays in the major leagues and has nothing to envy from tropicals