From Apple Seed to Apple Juice

An apple feels firm and round, but apple juice flows into a cup. How do apples become juice? The juice is already inside the apple, and its journey begins long before anyone pours it.

Inside an apple are little seeds. In damp soil, an apple seed can begin to grow. A gardener waters the soil so the seed has the water it needs to get started.

A sprout is a tiny new plant. Its roots grow down into the soil to take in water, and its first leaves reach up into the light. The gardener gives the sprout room to grow.

That little sprout takes years to become a tree big enough to grow apples. With sunlight and water, the tree grows more roots, branches, and leaves. Apples need a growing tree before they can begin.

In spring, flowers open on the apple tree. A blossom is a flower on the tree. Bees visiting blossoms carry a fine dust called pollen from flower to flower, helping apples begin to grow.

After pollen reaches a blossom, a tiny apple can begin growing at the bottom of the flower. The petals fall away. Over the warmer months, the apple grows bigger, with juice inside its firm flesh.

Here is a little puzzle: would a whole apple flow into a cup, or would someone need to squeeze its juice out? A whole apple stays in one piece. Squeezing will help separate the juice from the solid parts.

When the apples are ripe, orchard workers pick them and gather them into bins. They choose sound apples for making juice. A driver carries the apples to the people who will turn them into a drink.

At the juice factory, workers wash the apples to remove dirt. They check the fruit and take away any spoiled apples. Clean, sound fruit is the starting point for making the juice.

Next, workers use a machine to crush the apples into small, soft pieces. Breaking the apples up makes their juice easier to squeeze out. The pieces are ready for a press, a machine that squeezes.

Workers use the press to squeeze the crushed apples. Juice flows through a filter that holds back the larger solid pieces. The press helps collect the liquid that was inside the fruit all along.

For this bottled juice, workers heat the liquid to help keep it safe to drink, then cool it and fill clean bottles. Trained workers handle the hot equipment. A delivery driver takes the bottles to a shop.

Seed, sprout, tree, blossom, apple, juice. Workers pick and wash the apples, crush them, use a press to squeeze out the juice, then heat, cool, and bottle it. Apples become juice when people crush their flesh and squeeze out the liquid inside.

Now you know the long, gentle journey behind a little cup of apple juice.