I didnt tasted the fruit iet to know the sweteness but the colector that sold it to me ,also had a few ,,decorative,, pears with red flesh that were suposedly not verry tasty or not gòod to be eaten raw at least.One of those decorative pears wich i also bought but didnt survived ,was a sanguinole and it had a deep red bark ( more reddish than my red fleshed apple ,,red love era) wich led me thinking it could have red leaves also and possibly pink flowers.This one ,the ,,basil pear,, has a pink bark not deep red,and the leaves are normal green .The seller wich is a collector of rare cultivars said only the ,,basil pear,, its goot to eat and that its verry tasty and has a different flawor than normal pears.About the statement that they need cold weather to become red inside, i dont know , but i tend not to believe it because these trees are not normal pears and they have the red pigment even in their bark( its not just the fruit thats red but the whole tree).