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.
