Bing Cherry

Bred in Oregon and introduced in 1875, Bing was named after Ah Bing, a Chinese foreman who worked for and helped develop the orchard of breeder Seth Lewelling — a rare instance of a 19th-century American fruit variety honoring an immigrant laborer by name, at a time when Chinese workers in the Pacific Northwest often received little public credit for their agricultural contributions. It went on to become the benchmark against which essentially every other sweet cherry has been judged for a century and a half.