This spring (2 months before strawberry season), I bought a pack of strawberries in a supermarket. They had a good strawberry smell, some liquid (I thought it was condensate), but when I tried them at home, were like rubber inside -- absolutely tasteless. Seems these rubber strawberries were poured with strawberry syrup!!!! I let my wife try them, to feel the absurdity, and threw the rest in the trash bin.

I'm lucky to have a big marketplace in walkable distance.

My friend lived in Saint Petersburg, then moved to Yerevan (Armenia) and then to Prague (Czech rep). In Yerevan, in contrast to the other two cities, there are vegetable markets, and they have a taste. In SPb and Prague, they're like made of rubber.