What Are the Best Tasting Acorn Species?
With hundreds of oak trees worldwide, each producing its own unique acorn, there is quite some difference in taste. Many associate acorns with a bitter taste, and with good reason. After all, there are many inedible acorn species out there due to their bitterness. However, not all of them are like that.
In this post, we’ll investigate the best acorns you can eat, which I like to call the “almost sweet acorns.”
Why Are Acorns Bitter?
The main reason why raw acorns are bitter is because of a compound called tannin. Numerous plants, including certain fruits, contain it. Tannins are beneficial for the plant because they protect it from predators and illnesses. The downside is that it gives a very bitter taste. It can even be toxic for humans if consumed in large quantities.
The type of oak tree determines the tannin concentration. The higher the tannin content, the more bitter an acorn will be. This explains the differences in flavor between different species of acorns.
Do All Acorns Contain Tannins?
Tannins are present in every acorn. However, some of them have low amounts.
Tannins in white vs. red acorns
Generally speaking, one rule can be applied to acorns when it comes to tannins: the nuts produced by the white oak trees are less bitter than the ones from the red oaks. As you may have guessed already, the red acorn family has higher concentrations of tannins.
An interesting fact illustrates this perfectly: In the woods, animals like squirrels and deer eat white acorns from the floor first. They also find them less bitter. When white acorns are scarce, they turn to red ones.
Keep in mind that there are a few exceptions to this rule. Certain red oak species yield acorns with low tannin levels, while some white oaks produce acorns with considerable amounts of this compound.
Which Acorns Taste the Best?
Before we move on, I want to clarify that acorns do not have sugar content. In other words, there are no sweet acorns. I’m sorry to disappoint you if that’s what you were looking for.
Since sweetness is not a trait of acorns, when we say “best-tasting acorns,” we refer to the varieties with the lowest amounts of tannins, which are the less bitter ones.
Now that we are on the same page, here is our list of the most palatable acorns. Not surprisingly, most of them belong to the white oak family:
| Sawtooth oak (Quercus acutissima) | Valonia oak (Q. macrolepis) |
| California live oak or coast live oak (Q. agrifolia) | Pin oak or swamp Spanish oak (Q. palustris) |
| White oak (Q. alba) | Sessile oak, Cornish oak, Irish Oak, or durmast oak (Q. petraea) |
| Swamp white oak (Q. bicolor) | Common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak, or English oak (Q. robur) |
| Turkey oak or Austrian oak (Q. cerris) | Schuette’s oak (Q. x schuettei) |
| Japanese emperor oak, daimyo oak, or Korean oak (Q. dentata) | Post oak or iron oak (Q. stellata) |
| Oregon white oak, Oregon oak, or Garry oak (Q. garryana) | Cork oak (Q. suber) |
| Holm oak (Q. rotundifolia) | Compton oak (Quercus x comptoniae) |
| Valley oak (Q. lobata) | Chestnut oak (Q. montana) |
| Bur oak or mossycup oak (Q. macrocarpa) | Emory oak (Quercus emoryi) |
| Chinkapin oak or Chinquapin oak (Q. muehlenbergii) |
A Quick Word on Acorns With Low Tannin Content
Leaching acorns that belong to the species we discussed in our list may not be as urgent as those very bitter ones. But I still recommend that you remove the tannin content before consumption if you have that possibility. As I mentioned before, they still have some tannins.
If you are out in the woods and cannot do it, I advise you to eat only a few. If you eat a lot of raw acorns, you will still consume a significant amount of this toxic substance, regardless of which species you are dealing with.
In the case of low-tannin acorns, you can use less aggressive techniques. For example, roasting acorns in the oven is not as effective as leaching, but it will still reduce the tannin levels to a certain degree. The difference is that it’s much faster than leaching the acorns in boiling water, which is recommended for the most bitter varieties.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for less bitter acorns to eat, I hope you like the ones we compiled on our list. Remember that the tannin content is the reason for the bitterness. And, even though some varieties have lower levels than others, some processing is always a good idea, such as a quick roast.
