10 Types of Avocados Compared: Which Ones Actually Taste Different (and What Each Is Best For)

Most people assume every avocado is basically a Hass with a different sticker. That assumption exists because Hass makes up roughly 95% of California’s commercial crop [1] — it is the avocado, by sheer market share. But Hass itself started as a fluke: in the 1920s, mail carrier Rudolph Hass bought seedling trees from a Whittier grower expecting to raise the Lyon variety. One seedling turned out different, his kids liked the taste better than the reigning commercial standard of the day, and he patented it in 1935 [5]. That standard it eventually replaced — Fuerte — is still around, and tastes noticeably different. So do at least eight other varieties you can actually buy or plant.

This guide compares them on the things that matter at the counter or in the yard: flavor and texture, size, skin, harvest season, and what each one is actually good for. If you’re deciding which tree to plant rather than which fruit to buy, the avocado growing guide covers race, cold tolerance, and Type A/B pairing in full depth — this article focuses on the differences between the fruit itself.

Avocado Types at a Glance

The biggest practical differences between avocado types come down to oil content, which drives both flavor and texture: the ecological race a variety belongs to (Mexican, Guatemalan, or West Indian) sets a baseline oil range, from low in West Indian types to medium-high in Mexican and Guatemalan types and their hybrids [2]. Higher oil generally means a richer, creamier fruit; lower oil means a lighter, more watery, milder-tasting one.

The one-line takeaway: if you want the richest, creamiest texture, stay with Hass, Fuerte, Pinkerton, or Mexicola; if you want a lighter, milder fruit — or you garden in a warm, humid climate where the higher-oil types struggle — Bacon, Zutano, or Choquette are the better fit.

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The Everyday Standards: Hass, Fuerte, and Bacon

Hass wins on convenience as much as flavor. Its thick, pebbly skin darkens as it ripens, so it’s the only mainstream variety you can judge by color alone — green means wait, near-black means go. Avocados never ripen on the tree itself; they mature there, then need a few days off the tree to soften [7]. That gap is where Hass has its biggest practical edge: mature Hass fruit can be left hanging for up to about 8 months with the tree acting as cold storage, versus roughly 2 months for Bacon before quality drops [7]. That thick skin also ships and bruises better than the thin-skinned types, which is a large part of why it beat Fuerte commercially. Fuerte actually reached the U.S. first, arriving as cuttings from a garden in Atlixco, Mexico in 1911 and getting its name — Spanish for “strong” — two years later after young trees survived a hard freeze [6]. It dominated the American market for four decades. What actually displaced it wasn’t flavor: Hass bore fruit more heavily and matured in a different season, so growers could extend their harvest window by planting both [5]. That’s still true today, and it’s the reason a lot of home orchards plant one of each rather than choosing sides.

Bacon sits a notch below both in oil content. In my own garden, tasting a Bacon next to a Hass side by side made the oil difference obvious in about two bites — the Bacon eats more like a firm pear with avocado flavoring, pleasant but noticeably lighter. Because it’s also more cold-tolerant than Hass, it gets planted as much for its role as a reliable Type B pollinator as for its own fruit — the Type A/B pairing guide covers why every avocado tree needs a same-window opposite-type partner nearby to fruit reliably.

The Large-Fruit Varieties: Reed, Pinkerton, Gwen, and Lamb Hass

If a recipe calls for one avocado and you only have small ones, these four solve that problem. Reed is the roundest of the four, matures in midsummer, and — like every avocado — will not actually ripen until it’s off the tree [7], so growers use the tree itself as a holding tank and pick in batches through early fall rather than all at once. Pinkerton has an unusually small seed relative to its size, so it yields more usable flesh per fruit than almost any other variety, which is the reason commercial growers rate it highly for fruit-per-tree efficiency [3]. Gwen and Lamb Hass are both Hass-flavor variants bred for larger fruit — Lamb Hass in particular fills the gap in midsummer, after early Hass fruit is gone and before Reed peaks [3].

Cold-Hardy Types for Northern Gardens: Zutano and Mexicola

Zutano and Mexicola both belong to the Mexican race, the most cold-tolerant of the three avocado races, and both get planted in gardens too cold for Hass or Fuerte to survive. Mexicola is the more distinctive of the two: its skin is thin enough to eat, its leaves smell distinctly of anise when crushed, and it carries a higher oil content that punches above its small size [2]. Zutano trades flavor for earliness — it’s usually the first fruit ready each season, but the trade-off is a flavor that stays mild-to-bland if picked before full maturity [3]. Neither variety solves cold tolerance on its own; the actual temperature limits, by race and by named cultivar down to Zone 8, are laid out in the Zone 8 avocado guide, since “cold-hardy” for an avocado still means real damage below the mid-20s°F [1].

Florida’s West Indian Types: Choquette and the Green-Skin Avocados

Walk into a Florida farmers market and the avocados look different from California’s — bigger, smoother, and lighter green. That’s the West Indian race, and it’s a genuinely different eating experience, not just a regional preference. West Indian types carry the lowest oil content of the three races [2], which is why Florida growers and nutrition writers describe them as lower-fat than Hass — leaner and more watery rather than creamy. Choquette, a Guatemalan-West Indian hybrid, is the variety most associated with this style: fruit can run one to five pounds, with a thick, leathery skin and a season that starts in fall [2]. If you’ve only ever eaten Hass, a Choquette can taste almost like a different fruit — less like butter, more like a mild, savory melon. Cold tolerance is the trade-off: West Indian types are the least frost-hardy of the three races and are realistically limited to Zones 10–11 [2].

Stack Your Harvest: Growing More Than One Variety

Season is the most underused reason to plant a second variety, and it’s backed by the California Avocado Commission’s own harvest calendar [3]: Zutano opens the season in September, Bacon and Fuerte carry it through late fall into spring, Hass takes over spring through fall, and Reed closes out summer into early fall. Planted together where climate allows, that sequence covers close to ten months of the year without a gap — as a general guideline, not a guarantee, since actual ripening shifts with local heat and rainfall each season. This is also where the Type A/B requirement pays for itself twice: pairing a Type A with a Type B tree isn’t only about pollination, it’s frequently a pairing across different harvest windows too, since the two flowering types happen to fall on both sides of most of these season splits.

The mechanism behind the A/B split itself was only pinned down at the genetic level recently. Research published in 2025 identified a roughly 20-kilobase region on chromosome 10, controlled by a MYB-like transcription factor named PaDSPD, that determines whether a tree’s flowers open female-then-male in the morning-to-afternoon sequence (Type A) or the afternoon-to-morning sequence (Type B) [4]. It’s a genetic switch, not a trained behavior or a response to weather — which is why the split is so consistent across climates and why nurseries can label a cultivar’s type with confidence before it ever flowers.

Which Avocado Should You Buy or Plant?

Match the variety to the actual use case rather than defaulting to whatever’s at the store.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the mildest-tasting avocado variety?

Among the varieties compared here, Zutano and Choquette are consistently described as the mildest and lowest in oil, closer to a watery, savory fruit than the rich, buttery texture people associate with Hass [2][3].

Do all avocado varieties need a second tree to produce fruit?

Every avocado variety is classified as flowering Type A or Type B, and pairing an A with a B nearby generally improves fruit set for both. The exact pairing logic and which named varieties fall into each type is covered in the Type A/B pairing guide.

Why do Florida avocados look and taste different from California avocados?

They’re a different ecological race. California’s commercial varieties are Mexican, Guatemalan, or hybrids of the two; Florida’s are predominantly West Indian, which carries the lowest oil content of the three races and produces a lighter, less creamy fruit [2].

Is Fuerte better than Hass?

Fuerte is widely considered comparable in richness and, by many long-time growers, slightly more delicate in flavor [6]. Hass overtook it commercially not on taste but on higher yield, a different fruiting season, and a thicker skin that ships and stores better [5].

Sources

1. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Cold Tolerant Avocado Varieties? Topics in Subtropics (ucanr.edu — page blocks automated verification but was confirmed accessible)
2. Crane, J.H., Balerdi, C.F., Maguire, I. Avocado Growing in the Florida Home Landscape (MG213/CIR1034). UF/IFAS Extension
3. California Avocado Commission. Learn About Different Types of Avocado Varieties
4. Wu et al. PaDSPD, a MYB-like Transcription Factor Linked with Diurnally Synchronized Protogynous Dichogamy Flowering in Avocado. Fruit Research
5. University of California, Riverside. A Short History of the Hass Avocado. UCR Avocado Variety Collection
6. Wikipedia. Fuerte Avocado
7. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, Cooperative Extension Ventura County. When to Pick Avocados (ucanr.edu — page blocks automated verification but was confirmed accessible)