Author Topic: Best tasting Plinia?  (Read 1124 times)

Filozophr

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Best tasting Plinia?
« on: March 23, 2023, 12:06:18 PM »
Looking to start a collection of them soon but due to seed-to-fruit time being so long on this genus id rather wait a long while for the best tasting ones instead of random varieties.
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tru

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2023, 12:42:47 PM »
watch flyingfoxfruits on youtube, I don't know which but there's a specific video where in the intro he kind of categorizes them. I think plinia in general have 2 types, those that have astringency, and those that don't

among those that don't include phithrantha, aureana, escarlate? I think? Someone with a lot more knowledge could expand on this
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Jaboticaba45

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2023, 01:48:10 PM »
After tasting the most common ones, and a few rare ones that only a few have tasted, I can say one of the best ones are
sabara and grimal. Sabara just has that nice flavor you can't find anywhere else. Grimal is good and tastes just like a good muscadine. Not the puny ones in FL, but the ones up here. I know people do recommend coronata restinga, but I haven't gotten to try that one yet.

I know there are a lot of yellow plinias out there like rara, clausa, edulis, inflata etc. And I'm sure there are people who can chime in on those tastes. Except for edulis, the only way to try them is go to South America...I like the cambuca taste, but just nothing shocking about it.

K-Rimes

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2023, 02:23:30 PM »
For me I think red hybrid or escarlate are hard to beat. They also produce by far the soonest. They're sweeter and the skin is more palatable. As a Floridian I think you should just get a couple of those as seedlings and let them rip. You won't be waiting long.

Sabara is the best balance of tannin, spice and sweetness, skin is edible but barely.

Grimal has a lot more flesh than red or sabara, and has a nice texture and flavor to the flesh. The skin, for me, is basically inedible and way too thick / hard.

The whites I've tried have just been sweet, with low flesh and thick skin. It's more about the aesthetic of the leaves for those for me.

I will get to try a few new varieties that I grafted last year this year, so I look forward to being more informed. There are some much more informed people on this forum about flavors so I look forward to their reviews.

Ok, not quite jabo but close enough - vexator kind of sucks. Sour, bitter skin.

tru

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2023, 03:09:54 PM »
aw vexator sucks? damn. I love watching the leaves come in and it branched super early on, at least it's fun to look at  ;D
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palologrower

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2023, 03:47:03 PM »
aw vexator sucks? damn. I love watching the leaves come in and it branched super early on, at least it's fun to look at  ;D

vexator is actually not bad.  it's hard to pick it at the right time.  too early and you'll regret it.  but i do love a nicely ripened one.  As others have said, it's a beautiful tree. 

Cambuca is probably the easiest one to find in the states now that is actually fruiting or find grafted trees.  With the other species coming out of late, but it would've been classified as the largest fruit (shawi's crush it now in terms of size).  I do enjoy eating cambuca as it has each fruit despite the larger seed has a good amount of pulp.  Also, if you skin the rind you can do things like jam, rollups etc.

the yellow jaboticaba (different genus) tastes wonderful. That would be my favorite except for its very poor flesh ratio.  However, if you have a chance to get the hairy cross variety, it does produce bigger fruits.  I believe John Morton made a video somewhere about that and it does look markedly bigger than the typical yellow jaboticaba you see around town. 

palologrower

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2023, 04:01:52 PM »
plus...

best tasting is subjective.  I agree a good sabara or grimal are excellent.  but aureanas are very tasty. very sweet.  I haven't tried yet, but the branca mel aureana is supposedly 'the best.'

If you look at the last several years, the sheer number of varieties of jaboticabas introduced into the state/europe (partially induced by the pandemic) is mind boggling. at one point i had 70 varieties.  But I gave up.  Pared it down to a fraction of it. I know people (we know who these are) and they're probably well past 100+ just for plinia.  Some of the collectors just seeing what holed up americans were doing with their money instead of binge watching on netflix started to go out and collect all these Plinia sp. and just add the name of the locale.  So many of the varieties come out with their sp. name and when pressing for more details as to what makes it unique, you dont' get much of a response.  It's from Bahia....so what else?  Crickets. 

Plus on top of it, unless you're one of the few that have been able to import grafted trees all these seed grown plinias may have some variance from their parents.  Maybe for the better or for the worse.  Who knows.  In any case, so much info to digest but soooo many what ifs and ?????

End of rant, I will step off the soap box now. 

If I were to grab jabos for unique characteristics and/or taste, these are the ones and why...this is just my opinion.  So I'm sure there are many other opinions.

Sabara-industry standard multiple crops in a year
Red/Escalarte-fast growers Good flavor.  Red grows like an unorganized bush, escalarte more upright.  For that I prefer escalarte.
Grimal-EXCELLENT taste. Not a fast grower.
Phithanthas-fast growers overall.  However, beware, they seem to be the most prolific species in terms of popping out all these varieties. Look at China/Taiwan.   I'd say Sanford is one that tasted good and fruited fast for me.
Plinia sp. Honey Drop (forgot the brazilian translation for it). This is the one that there's this huge plantation of them devoted to making jabo wine.  Not sabara, but this Honey Drop.  I have a couple but not fruited, but if someone dropped the $$$$$ for a farm to do wine with one variety, I'd pay attention. 
Paulista/Olho de boi-take forever to fruit, but get BIG Fruits.
Aureana-Branca Mel-as mentioned before supposedly best white jabo
Spirito santensis-I heard it's a excellent fruit, but I always loved the color flush of new growth on this one.  This one when you grow it out, you'd eat your breakfast bagel and drink your coffee outside just so you can stare at it and enjoy it. 
Plinia sp. Rondonia-i had this one but I think i killed it.  This one is sweet when it's even still green. 
Coronata Restinga-fast growing for a coronata. Good sized fruit. 
Cambuca
Plinia clausa

Beyond that, there are more I'm sure people want to collect for different aspects but can't vouch for taste yet unless you go Brazil for yourself. 

Anyway, if you're looking for plants, I'd contact John Travis Morton as he regularly sells most of these listed. If you're in Florida and close by enough I'm sure you can  make an arrangement to buy direct and he'll give you a fair deal if you buy a nice chunk. 

persie

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2023, 07:32:52 PM »

Plinia sp. Honey Drop (forgot the brazilian translation for it). This is the one that there's this huge plantation of them devoted to making jabo wine.  Not sabara, but this Honey Drop.  I have a couple but not fruited, but if someone dropped the $$$$$ for a farm to do wine with one variety, I'd pay attention. 

you must be talking about "fazenda jabuticabal" the one you say is "pingo de mel" and they started to plant the first trees in 1947 and the winery started in 1999
https://www.vinicolajabuticabal.com.br/historia/

palologrower

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2023, 07:44:29 PM »

Plinia sp. Honey Drop (forgot the brazilian translation for it). This is the one that there's this huge plantation of them devoted to making jabo wine.  Not sabara, but this Honey Drop.  I have a couple but not fruited, but if someone dropped the $$$$$ for a farm to do wine with one variety, I'd pay attention. 

you must be talking about "fazenda jabuticabal" the one you say is "pingo de mel" and they started to plant the first trees in 1947 and the winery started in 1999
https://www.vinicolajabuticabal.com.br/historia/

that's the one!

dwfl

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2023, 08:46:39 PM »
I like Cambuca, Sabara, and Grimal.

Vexator is awful but a beautiful tree. I think even raccoons ignore that fruit whereas they go crazy over sabara.

Abirkett2

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2023, 09:34:02 PM »
Looking to start a collection of them soon but due to seed-to-fruit time being so long on this genus id rather wait a long while for the best tasting ones instead of random varieties.

I personally think the best trees to start with are Sabara (most common and a good fruit), Red or Scarlet (quickest to produce fruit, and are quite prolific once fruiting). I didn't love Sabara at first, but they're growing on me. I bought a few larger fruiting trees and definitely could see myself eating bowls full now. The Red and Scarlet are better to me though due to their thinner skin.
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hammer524

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Re: Best tasting Plinia?
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2023, 10:16:33 AM »
I’ve tried five varieties of Jaboticaba that were sent to me. Although they weren’t straight off a tree, Red was my favorite