Thanks everyone for looking. It was an awesome trip...too bad my stay was short.
cuban - you nailed it, tropical almonds!!! Sea grapes & Tropical almonds are used extensively there as shade trees. I was the only one picking fruits aside from two kids there
FGM - sugar apples are in season ... Vietnamese people only care for the chewy textured SA, non chewy SA can't sell at all there. I brought back some excellent cherimoyas from San Diego but not one person cared for it, they all hated its texture.
Oscar - I was there for 3 weeks. It was not at all a fruit hunting trip though I found plenty at the markets to keep my mouth busy. Highlight? Kids got to meet grand folks on their moms side for the first time. They ate everything I did ... fruit-wise.
Oh yea, watching them play on the sandy shores I grew up on - for me that hits home the most Recher - it's indeed an R2E2. I liked it a lot ... well, more than Kent at least. It's commercially grown about 30 something miles south of my home town.
Felipe - java apples taste? They varied a lot, I had some really sweet and juicy to some really bland ones. I'm not familiar but I think these were Black Pearls? The Black Diamond I had several months back was better. They had to import mangosteens from Thailand in years back but they're locally grown now, the only imported fruits were apples & oranges. Hoa Loc mango was imported too but that's from different provinces within the country. We were right in the middle of mangosteen season & paid less $1.5/kilo. Which fruits did I like the most? We went through piles & piles & piles of mangosteens quicker than any other fruits so I'd say Mangosteen
. I think it's easier to pick out what I didn't like: langsat.
She liked it
Steven - Chrysophyllum cainito are grown everywhere there...they even have established cultivars. Funny you brought caimito up cuz I never found a great tasting purple caimito...until this trip. It was incredibly delicious, I'm now a fan of this purple type. Notice its atypical shape compared to other caimito fruits?
Fyliu & Harry - those are Ochna integerrima trees. They were for the lunar new year ... the ones you see in that picture were going for $20-40/each depending on time of purchase and your haggling skill.
As for the planting method, I saw a much bigger noni tree and some fruiting sugar apples grown in the same manner. It's unreal these trees can thrive under such conditions, yet here we are pampering our trees to death.
This tree here was selling for 7,500,000 (around $360) - marked up 2-3 times because of the lunar new year but still cheap.
