Author Topic: What is the best lychee?  (Read 62984 times)

jabomano

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #25 on: February 06, 2012, 04:55:32 PM »
Sweet Heart.

Ray
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simon_grow

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #26 on: February 07, 2012, 07:30:04 PM »
My favorite Lychees in order of preference are
No Mai Tsze- tasted these in China and Hong Kong, sweet, crisp flesh, very white colored flesh, average size fruit, no medicinal taste at all- my parents favorite as well
Sweetheart- very large fruit, very small seed, smells and tastes of honey
Emperor-I love fully ripened Emperors, the ones with very little tartness, the ones picked even a little early are much less sweet and pretty tart.  I ordered some last year from Lycheesonline.com.  The fully ripened, fully colored, full sized Emperor with abortive seed-I will rate on par with a good Sweetheart.
Hak Ip-standard lychee
Brewster-I love the flesh, one of my favorites, if not for the seed that takes up 99.99% of the fruit
Mauritius-going to order some from Lycheesonline this year to verify it is one of my least favorite lychees, sorry Lycheeluva

Still looking for a source for Garnet Lychee airlayer so please let me know if anyone has one available for sale.
Simon

lycheeluva

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #27 on: February 07, 2012, 08:11:38 PM »
simon, im not sure i can forgive you, and more importantly, my good friend lord mauritius is not sure he can forgive you.

let us know what u think after this year's sampling

fruitlovers

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #28 on: February 07, 2012, 08:17:15 PM »
Would love to go to southern China during peak lychee season. There are so many excellent varieties i don't think i would ever taste otherwise. BTW, someone i know went to China and told me he found on some fruit stands black lychees! No not black as in rotten, but really black colored exterior skin. Said they were very good, but never saved the seeds!?!?!  :'(
Oscar
Oscar

simon_grow

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #29 on: February 07, 2012, 08:39:25 PM »
Lycheeluva, I will make it up to lord Mauritius if this years crop tastes better.  I will even consider purchasing a Mauritius since its supposed to be one of the more dependable fruiting lychees. 

Oscar, next time I go back, I will look for the Black Lychee ;D
Simon

fruitlovers

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #30 on: February 07, 2012, 10:12:38 PM »
Lycheeluva, I will make it up to lord Mauritius if this years crop tastes better.  I will even consider purchasing a Mauritius since its supposed to be one of the more dependable fruiting lychees. 

Oscar, next time I go back, I will look for the Black Lychee ;D
Simon

Simon, what area of China did you visit?
Oscar
Oscar

simon_grow

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #31 on: February 08, 2012, 12:29:43 PM »
Hey Oscar, I believe it is Guang Zhou and Guang Dong, I have to ask my dad to be sure.  My dad comes from a lychee growing district in China and we still have several trees on our ancestrial land with a few extremely large Lychee trees that must be close to 100 years old.  Most of the varieties on my dads land are chinese named cultivars and they taste extremely good.  I haven't been back there for almost 15 years.  Last time I went back, I wasn't even into Lychees but I do remember my brother and I climbing on the trunk of a large Lychee tree next to the pond and picking the few lychee that were within reach.  I think it is that memory that has got me so interested in Lychee growing once I got back to the US. 
Simon

adiel

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #32 on: February 08, 2012, 01:43:10 PM »
I like the Brewster lychee.  The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't flower every year.

Adiel
Adiel

lycheeluva

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #33 on: February 08, 2012, 02:13:57 PM »
brewster is one of my least fave. (still a great fruit though).
very difficult to bite into without getting juice over you, very large stone, and no complexity- just sweetness. brewster and hak ip are the two cultivars that i definitly will not be growing

SWRancher

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #34 on: February 08, 2012, 08:44:29 PM »
"very difficult to bite into without getting juice over you." In the heat and high humidity of the South Florida summer one of the best things about eating a fresh Lychee is that they are bursting with juice even if it gets all over you ;D   

fruitlovers

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #35 on: February 08, 2012, 10:06:17 PM »
"very difficult to bite into without getting juice over you." In the heat and high humidity of the South Florida summer one of the best things about eating a fresh Lychee is that they are bursting with juice even if it gets all over you ;D   

My favorite lychees are my best fruiting lychees: B-3 and Kaimana. What good is an excellent tasting lychee if it does not fruit well or consistently, or maybe doesn't fruit at all? Lychees are very tricky to fruit in our rainy tropical climate.
Oscar
Oscar

lycheeluva

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #36 on: February 09, 2012, 11:40:00 PM »
The lychee varieties i have planted are: Kwai mi pink (also called Bosworth 3), Kaimana, Salathiel, Wai Chee, Groff, Kwai Mi, Emperor, Bengal, Ohia, Yellow Red, Hanging Green, No Mai Tze, Amboina,  and Sweetheart.
Of these i've only tasted B3, Kaimana, Groff, Kwai Mi, Emperor, and Bengal. I also tasted Calcutta, which is nice because it is super late bearing, so offseason.
Oscar

oscar, apparently your kwai mi is a mauritius!
see http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/lychee.html#Origin and Distribution

fruitlovers

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #37 on: February 09, 2012, 11:46:27 PM »
The lychee varieties i have planted are: Kwai mi pink (also called Bosworth 3), Kaimana, Salathiel, Wai Chee, Groff, Kwai Mi, Emperor, Bengal, Ohia, Yellow Red, Hanging Green, No Mai Tze, Amboina,  and Sweetheart.
Of these i've only tasted B3, Kaimana, Groff, Kwai Mi, Emperor, and Bengal. I also tasted Calcutta, which is nice because it is super late bearing, so offseason.
Oscar

oscar, apparently your kwai mi is a mauritius!
see http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/lychee.html#Origin and Distribution

I remember reading that before, but there is some debate about whether what we call Kwai Mi here in Hawaii is the same as Mauritius. There is a whole lot of confusion in the naming of lychee cultivars. Also there is the possibility of cultural changes when a cultivar is grown in a different location for a long time, as in the Mauritius island versus same cultivar grown in China for millenia. There is a DNA tracking project on lychees to try to sort this all out.
Oscar
Oscar

lycheeluva

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #38 on: February 09, 2012, 11:56:35 PM »
i read an israeli paper on lychee dna testing to try and figure out the cultivars. i thank that article i linked to went on to say that brewster is more acidic than kwai mi. there is no way anyone would consider brewster more acidic than mauritius so who the hell knows what is what

BMc

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #39 on: February 13, 2012, 08:30:36 PM »
Have a quick look at the picture in this thread of a supposedly new variety grown in central Queensland. 100gm lychees?
http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/forum/new-lychee-variety/

johnb51

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #40 on: February 13, 2012, 08:36:23 PM »
Have a quick look at the picture in this thread of a supposedly new variety grown in central Queensland. 100gm lychees?
http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/forum/new-lychee-variety/

Freaky!
John

fruitlovers

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #41 on: February 13, 2012, 09:21:53 PM »
He gets a cultivar developed at a Chinese research station, brings it back to Australia, and then renames it after himself?
Oscar
Oscar

BMc

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #42 on: February 13, 2012, 10:22:57 PM »
I dont think he named it after himself. It sounds like the usual murdering of a Chinese cv name.
I'm surprised a research station released it to him though as they've been pretty protective with good stuff since the whole kiwi thing and chase away folks after their bayberry cv.s

murahilin

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #43 on: February 13, 2012, 10:24:35 PM »
Anyone know how to get that variety to the US?

JoeP450

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #44 on: February 13, 2012, 11:52:51 PM »
That is an incredible lychee, looks kind of like a sweet heart shape and texture.

_JoeP450

bsbullie

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #45 on: February 14, 2012, 12:50:31 AM »
That is an incredible lychee, looks kind of like a sweet heart shape and texture.

_JoeP450
Sorry, but just had to ask, how do you have looks like and texture in the same sentence ?  ??? :)
- Rob

simon_grow

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #46 on: February 14, 2012, 02:24:50 AM »
Thats incredible but I'll have to taste it to believe it.  I'm wondering why this wasn't all over the Chinese news as many Asians would be very interested in a Lychee that size even if it didn't taste too good.  Those huge Lychees look a little like Sweetheart but also a little like Emperor.  I wonder how large a Sweetheart or Emperor could get if it were grown on a full sized tree and you culled extremely heavily as in leaving only 1-3 fruit per panicle?  If anyone know where I can get this variety, please let us know! 8) :o :-X
Simon

simon_grow

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #47 on: February 14, 2012, 02:35:35 AM »
Check this out, maybe not as large but pretty close.
http://thingsweloveparty.blogspot.com/2011/06/giant-lychee.html

murahilin

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #48 on: February 14, 2012, 10:50:57 AM »
I remember someone giving a presentation or something and mentioning going to China and seeing some very large lychees that were a few times larger than the largest ones here. I think it may have been Dr. Crane. Can't remember exactly who or when though.

What I do remember is that he said it was a new variety so maybe it will be more common in the future.

johnb51

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Re: What is the best lychee?
« Reply #49 on: February 14, 2012, 09:30:28 PM »
That is an incredible lychee, looks kind of like a sweet heart shape and texture.

_JoeP450
Sorry, but just had to ask, how do you have looks like and texture in the same sentence ?  ??? :)

The shape and texture resemble a Sweetheart.  I get it!
John