The Tropical Fruit Forum

My Thoughts on Dragon Fruit Varieties and How to Enjoy Them

First, I recommend avoiding the typical commercial Vietnamese white varieties. They are very productive and make good rootstock, but the flavor is usually very bland compared with better varieties.

American Beauty (OG)
A properly ripened American Beauty can easily reach 20° Brix. Most of the fruits I harvested last year had very high Brix and excellent flavor. It also has one of the most beautiful red/purple fleshes you’ll see in dragon fruit.

Moroccan Red
Excellent flavor as well. It is usually not quite as sweet as American Beauty, but if you ripen it correctly it can reach 18° Brix or more. Great taste and a very nice color.

White Flesh NOID (unknown variety)
I have a white-fleshed variety that produces huge fruits with extremely high Brix. Last year one fruit measured around 20–22° Brix — almost like syrup. The flavor profile is different from American Beauty, but the sweetness is definitely there.

Palora (Yellow Dragon Fruit)
Palora is extremely sweet. Sometimes it can even be too sweet for some people. In the fruit world, many consider 18–20° Brix the perfect balance, because when sweetness goes much higher without complexity, it can feel like eating sugar water. Palora can sometimes taste like that when it is fully ripe.

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How to Enjoy Dragon Fruit

• Eat it cold – Dragon fruit almost always tastes better after being chilled in the refrigerator.
• Smoothies – Blend the flesh with other fruits or milk.
• Milk drink – One of my favorites:

- Dragon fruit (especially American Beauty)
- Milk
- A little natural honey

Blend it together and it becomes an amazing drink. I honestly wait all year for dragon fruit season just to make this. It tastes great and is packed with nutrients.

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Dragon Fruit Ice Cream (Simple Recipe)

You can also make dragon fruit ice cream, which turns out fantastic because of the natural color and sweetness.

Ingredients

- 2 cups dragon fruit flesh (red varieties work best)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1/3–1/2 cup sugar or honey (adjust depending on sweetness of fruit)
- 1 tsp vanilla (optional)
- Pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Blend the dragon fruit flesh until smooth.
2. In a bowl, mix cream, milk, sugar/honey, vanilla, and salt.
3. Add the dragon fruit puree and mix well.
4. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for about 1–2 hours.
5. Churn in an ice-cream maker or freeze and stir every 30–40 minutes until creamy.

The result is bright pink, super flavorful ice cream that tastes even better if you use a high-Brix variety like American Beauty.

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Dragon fruit can be amazing when you grow the right varieties and harvest them fully ripe. When the Brix gets high, the flavor becomes something completely different from the bland store-bought fruits.
So choose wise and know how to. Perfecty ripe your dragon fruit a nicely ripen one is super good...

Hi, Achachariu will probably do well enough. Hopefully you would be high enough for chirimoya. I’m not sure. Chirimoya does appear at the market mentioned but I don’t really know what altitude it needs. Lychee is something you don’t really see and that has always surprised me. Like chirimoya I would think that you just keep going up the hill until you find a climate that it likes. But I never see it and that is strange for CR as practically every tropical and sub tropical fruit is grown here somewhere.
Peter

I would probably cut away including a part of the green wood and seal it with some calcium, perhaps mixed with a bit of copper sulphate.
If you decide to not cut the green wood then I would completely scrape away anything dead and keep an eye on it to watch for any pathogen spreading.
Peter

Good for you! This gives me hope. My 2 avocado died and one started from the base. Mangoes (big ones) not doing anything yet. Amazing that even inside the same zipcode you can find cold and warm pockets. I think you are lucky to live in warm one. I lived in NW Palm Bay about 15 years ago and worked in West Melbourne. Every time we had freezing in NW PB I was driving in the morning like to another world. Plant that died in my yard was completely fine in WM.

To me it tastes similar to sweet potato pie or pumpkin pie. I don't know that it will adapt well to your conditions. I have only heard of one productive tree in California (which is more similar to your climate). Even in Florida, bearing trees tend to be limited to the very southern tip of the state.