Sweetest pink/red guava, Mexican Cream guava, and guavas in general

[sc4001992]

Ok, more info on the orange flesh guava. The one I have is still a small seedling. It is called Gushiken, USDA cultivar HPSI 26.
Here's a few photos of what the fruit should look like, but not sure if the seedling will have similar fruit.

[JoeP450]

I feel like this is a test of what color the dress is but to me that looks like pink 🤷‍♂️😂

-joe

[sc4001992]

Seng, your red seedless guave video shows a pretty large fruit that would be nice. Do you know if the taste of the fruit is sweet and if the flesh is hard or smooth. From the video it looks like a crunchy fruit.

JoeP450, yes the color is deceiving, I have seen a few photos online that shows more of the orange color flesh but it was from the person/place I purchased my plant and didn't want to use their photos.

[nullzero]

I found the best tasting guavas to be from Taiwan. Emperor and Crystal guava are elite selections and some of the best, if you can find a good air layer. Also Diamond guava from Exotica is very good.

[sc4001992]

nullzero,

Ok good to hear more than a few people mentioning the Crystal seedless tastes good, I have a small graft on my tree. What is the Emperor guava and is it here in the USA?

I will need to visit Exotica and checkout the Diamond guava since I keep hearing he has many hard to find varieties. I did graft (but not sure if it will take yet) a white flesh guava that snowjunky said is a very sweet seedling plant called Steve's Super Sweet (SSS). This seedling was from Exotica.

[Plantinyum]

Ok, more info on the orange flesh guava. The one I have is still a small seedling. It is called Gushiken, USDA cultivar HPSI 26.
Here's a few photos of what the fruit should look like, but not sure if the seedling will have similar fruit.

i had ate something similar to this around two years ago, the fruits were the size of big plums slightly pear shaped. The colour thought, it looks like pink to me too so ....
I have three seedling plants which are big now so hopefully next year i will see some fruit on them.
I also have three seedling plants from a bigger fruited ,pink guava, probably similar to apple guava. Two of them set fruit this year ,but due to the colder temps in the gh they are not sizing at the moment.
I had fruit this year from two catley guavas , both the yellow and the red varieties.
I liked the red strawberry guava the better, had more sweetness, very good flavour with a small amount of seeds per fruit. Fruits were the size of a medium large round plum. Both the peel and the inside just melted into the mouth, the peel had a slight piney flavour which i very much liked.
The yellow one, generally called lemon guava was kinda bland compared to the other.

[nullzero]

nullzero,

Ok good to hear more than a few people mentioning the Crystal seedless tastes good, I have a small graft on my tree. What is the Emperor guava and is it here in the USA?

I will need to visit Exotica and checkout the Diamond guava since I keep hearing he has many hard to find varieties. I did graft (but not sure if it will take yet) a white flesh guava that snowjunky said is a very sweet seedling plant called Steve's Super Sweet (SSS). This seedling was from Exotica.

I have a Diamond guava seedling and Waimea red seedling from Steve at Exotica. I have tried a crystal guava from my friends tree it was slightly better then Diamond but did not do a taste test head to head. If you only plant 1 guava can't go wrong with Diamond and it is easier to source due to Exotica propagating it.

[sc4001992]

Have you tried the Jalisco red or the Delores seedless from JF? I hear they are very sweet.

[nullzero]

Have you tried the Jalisco red or the Delores seedless from JF? I hear they are very sweet.

I believe it was dolores that I had some years back. It was good but not as good as diamond or crystal. Btw I am going off memory and dis not taste head to head.

[palingkecil]

I've lived in Taiwan before, and I ate tons of guava over there. People sell guava on the street as snacks that anyone can grab anytime.
As far as I remember, Crystal is good, but not creamy at all. It is more to crunchy type. I don't remember eating Emperor, maybe I did but just did not find it memorable.
The most tasty guava in Taiwan for me was Milk guava. Yes, they call it Niu Nai Pa Le in Mandarin, translated as Milk guava.
It is not creamy nor crunchy, just in between. Not super sweet, but enough sweet with no tartness or any other aftertaste. It has few seeds with very sweet soft inner part.
I actually been trying to find this variety here, but no one ever heard of it.

[sc4001992]

Palingkecil, I will need to send you one of my Melon guava fruit next year when it ripens. I think it tastes good, smooth, not crunchy, strong fragrance, but it has many seeds. Since I have some Mexican Cream plants now and one tree has 1 fruit so I will be able to taste it in a month to see if it tastes the same as my Melon guava or better.

[palingkecil]

Palingkecil, I will need to send you one of my Melon guava fruit next year when it ripens. I think it tastes good, smooth, not crunchy, strong fragrance, but it has many seeds. Since I have some Mexican Cream plants now and one tree has 1 fruit so I will be able to taste it in a month to see if it tastes the same as my Melon guava or better.

The picture of your Melon guava looks mouthwatering, Kaz.
I tried to find Melon guava at Lowes and Home Depot, but seems like no one has it anymore. You got lucky!
My friend has Jalisco Red, but this year is only the first year it bears fruit, so he said it just taste so so, he prefers his Ruby Supreme.
But I suspect the fruit quality will improve as the tree gets older.
If next year my fake Peruvian guava bears more fruit, I will send some to you. The fruit tastes so much like Mexican cream, but bigger in size.
This year I only get 2 fruits, because lack of watering. I never fertilize any of my guava trees, do you fertilize your guava?

[sc4001992]

Sounds good. I have not tasted the Mexican Cream nor the Peruvian so it will be good to try them. I have 4 Mexican Cream plants now since so many people say the ones they purchased turned out to be a different variety. I hope one of the 4 plants turns out to be the correct variety. I don't really fertilize any of my fruits trees, except maybe one time in the summer if I remember. Most of my trees other fruit trees are all older so they seem to do well with just watering it once a week.

[sc4001992]

Today I tasted my first Mexican Cream guava on a grafted plant I purchased this year. I was disappointed with the taste of the fruit. It had a mild fragance of guava, fell off the branch when it got a little yellow color skin. I let it sit on the counter for another 3 days and it turned to light yellow color all over the fruit. Fruit looked nice, smelled good, flesh texture was firm but not fully creamy. The flavor/taste to me was just ok, had some mild sweetness but that was it.

My Melon guava in comparison had more flavor/taste than this Mexican Cream guava. I hope the other plants I have will have some fruits next year and maybe the taste will improve. I'm pretty sure I have the real Mexican Cream guava from the nursery (4). I will post a few photos of the one fruit I had on my tree.

[sc4001992]

Here's my photos of the one Mexican Cream guava from one of my trees in pot. If anyone else has a good tasting guava and want to trade me for a few cuttings with my Mexican Cream then send me a PM.

[snowjunky]

I've lived in Taiwan before, and I ate tons of guava over there. People sell guava on the street as snacks that anyone can grab anytime.
As far as I remember, Crystal is good, but not creamy at all. It is more to crunchy type. I don't remember eating Emperor, maybe I did but just did not find it memorable.
The most tasty guava in Taiwan for me was Milk guava. Yes, they call it Niu Nai Pa Le in Mandarin, translated as Milk guava.
It is not creamy nor crunchy, just in between. Not super sweet, but enough sweet with no tartness or any other aftertaste. It has few seeds with very sweet soft inner part.
I actually been trying to find this variety here, but no one ever heard of it.

Do you remember eating Pearl or Century guavas in Taiwan?  How good are they compared to Crystal?

[snowjunky]

nullzero,

Ok good to hear more than a few people mentioning the Crystal seedless tastes good, I have a small graft on my tree. What is the Emperor guava and is it here in the USA?

I will need to visit Exotica and checkout the Diamond guava since I keep hearing he has many hard to find varieties. I did graft (but not sure if it will take yet) a white flesh guava that snowjunky said is a very sweet seedling plant called Steve's Super Sweet (SSS). This seedling was from Exotica.

Hey Kaz, my SSS guava is short for Steve's Seeded Surprise because I was surprised it was not seedless.  Long story short I bought it from Steve at Exotica as a seedless guava he called Lua Ranch.  Except Steve didn't tell me that it's a seedling, not a clone.  So I was unpleasantly surprised when the first guava was full of seeds   When you buy a named variety from Exotica Nursery, make sure to ask Steve if it's a seedling or clone.

Anyway this story has a good ending because the SSS guava turned out excellent.  It produces fruit two or three times a year.
The guavas are very sweet and flavorful with some acidity when they are still hard and crunchy like an apple.
They are even sweeter when they ripen and soften a bit.  The flavor can be intense.
The guavas vary in size and shape from egg size to orange size and round, oval and pear shapes.
The tree is very vigorous and has big leaves.  It is also a bit more cold hardy than my other guavas trees.

[snowjunky]

The La Verne Nursery's Mexican Cream guava is sweet and very fragrant, but tiny fruit and unproductive.  The fruit sometimes has pink blush in the white/yellow flesh.  It is definitely different than the medium size Mexican Cream fruit I've seen on youtube and some websites.  I'm not sure why they would graft and propagate something so unworthy.

[snowjunky]

I've grown Peruvian and Ong(from Ong's Nursery) guava.
Peruvian is productive, but bland.  The fruits are small/medium and soft.  I chopped it down after 5 years.
Ong is productive, but bland and watery.  The fruits are big and crunchy, but prone to deformation, cracking and rotting in Phoenix.  I chopped it down after 5 years also.

[spaugh]

The La Verne Nursery's Mexican Cream guava is sweet and very fragrant, but tiny fruit and unproductive.  The fruit sometimes has pink blush in the white/yellow flesh.  It is definitely different than the medium size Mexican Cream fruit I've seen on youtube and some websites.  I'm not sure why they would graft and propagate something so unworthy.

Because thats what la verne does.  They propogate a lot of mediocre avocados as well.   The care mostly about making maximum $, not selling the best stuff. 

Kaz, did your guava grafts take?

[palingkecil]

I've lived in Taiwan before, and I ate tons of guava over there. People sell guava on the street as snacks that anyone can grab anytime.
As far as I remember, Crystal is good, but not creamy at all. It is more to crunchy type. I don't remember eating Emperor, maybe I did but just did not find it memorable.
The most tasty guava in Taiwan for me was Milk guava. Yes, they call it Niu Nai Pa Le in Mandarin, translated as Milk guava.
It is not creamy nor crunchy, just in between. Not super sweet, but enough sweet with no tartness or any other aftertaste. It has few seeds with very sweet soft inner part.
I actually been trying to find this variety here, but no one ever heard of it.

Do you remember eating Pearl or Century guavas in Taiwan?  How good are they compared to Crystal?

I ate some Pearl guava, it is very crunchy and refreshing, but kind of bland. I never try Century guava. I prefer Crystal over Pearl guava, as Crystal has more flavor.

[snowjunky]

The La Verne Nursery's Mexican Cream guava is sweet and very fragrant, but tiny fruit and unproductive.  The fruit sometimes has pink blush in the white/yellow flesh.  It is definitely different than the medium size Mexican Cream fruit I've seen on youtube and some websites.  I'm not sure why they would graft and propagate something so unworthy.

Because thats what la verne does.  They propogate a lot of mediocre avocados as well.   The care mostly about making maximum $, not selling the best stuff. 

Kaz, did your guava grafts take?

Capitalistic pigs

[snowjunky]

I've lived in Taiwan before, and I ate tons of guava over there. People sell guava on the street as snacks that anyone can grab anytime.
As far as I remember, Crystal is good, but not creamy at all. It is more to crunchy type. I don't remember eating Emperor, maybe I did but just did not find it memorable.
The most tasty guava in Taiwan for me was Milk guava. Yes, they call it Niu Nai Pa Le in Mandarin, translated as Milk guava.
It is not creamy nor crunchy, just in between. Not super sweet, but enough sweet with no tartness or any other aftertaste. It has few seeds with very sweet soft inner part.
I actually been trying to find this variety here, but no one ever heard of it.

Do you remember eating Pearl or Century guavas in Taiwan?  How good are they compared to Crystal?

I ate some Pearl guava, it is very crunchy and refreshing, but kind of bland. I never try Century guava. I prefer Crystal over Pearl guava, as Crystal has more flavor.

Thanks, that's good to know.  Pearl is suppose to be easier to grow and more vigorous than the low vigor Crystal, Emperor and Century trees.

[snowjunky]

I have two Crystal guavas.  Crystal Seedless from Taiwan is bushy, low vigor, has normal shaped leaves and sets fruit well. 
The other Crystal guava is probably the same as the Seedless guava according to Kaz.  It's from Southeast Asia somewhere.  It has rounded leaves, but doesn't set fruit well.
Both are supposed to be very sweet and crunchy.

Here is Crystal Seedless grafted on Tropic White rootstock:



Here is Crystal aka Seedless guava grafted on Ruby X Supreme:

[snowjunky]

Pearl guava grafted on Psidium Guineense:



Century Guava:



Narrow Leaf Guava:



Para Guava: