JF, thanks for helping with the organization of the event and for the fruit gathering! The event was a complete sugar overload for the mind and body, literally! I also have to thank Ashok for being such a gracious host! He had everything so well organized it was just amazing. Ashok is living the American Dream with his beautiful family and I have never seen a house and tropical fruit garden in such prestine condition. I am not posting any pictures of his yard or trees in respect of his privacy, he may decide to do so in the future.
The day started for me by picking up local legend Jim Neitzel and his friend Paul. We were talking non stop on the 1 hour 45 minute drive from Lemon Grove to Ahaheim Hills. I was so excited to have Jim in my car that I had to slow my brain down and remind myself that this is a rare opportunity to have such a legend sitting in my car with his full attention so I eventually focused my thoughts and started picking Jims brain about the direction of rare fruit growing in Souther California.
Jim, Paul and I started chatting up a storm and we fed off each other's thoughts and ideas and by the end of our road trip we all had new ideas, spins and twists, to improve upon current technology.
Anyways, in order to prevent digressing any further, the event was a complete blast and an opportunity to share fruit and thoughts with like minded people. The event was initially held as a Cherimoya tasting but it ended up being much more. We had Cherimoya, Atemoya, Mango, Guava, Dragonfruit, Starfruit, Passionfruit, Persimmon, Sugarcane and probably several others I can't recall.
I mention this at every tasting event but I'll say it again, it is nearly impossible to have so many different varieties of fruit ripen properly and present itself in full glory on any given day. There are just too many variable to consider so I'm just going to say that everyone that picked and gathered fruit for this event did our best to properly ripen the fruit. Some of the fruit we're overripe and others were under ripe but there were plenty of fruit that were in excellent condition. Here are the results of the Cherimoya tasting, I'll add additional information later on.
Simon