Most underrated fruits - what should be grown more?

[Jaboticaba45]

Let’s use this thread to spread awareness of cool underrated fruits that are worth growing. What are your takes on this?
I’ll go first.
Kwai muk. Why?
Great taste as it’s like a peach citrus with balance tartness. It’s also a cold tolerant tree.
Beautiful tree too.
Honorable mention to olosapo
Also a beautiful tree with silvery leaves and the fruit smells so good like burnt sugar.

[johnb51]

Good topic!  I hope to learn from this one.  I think your namesake fruit should be grown more in South Florida, as should white sapote, persimmon, and atemoya, but those are considered pretty common.

[W.]

Good topic!  I hope to learn from this one.  I think your namesake fruit should be grown more in South Florida, as should white sapote, persimmon, and atemoya, but those are considered pretty common.

Of course, what is considered common is relative. The fruits you mentioned are known to everyone on the Forum but, even in areas where they can be grown, are probably unknown to 99% of the public.

I will add Kadsura to Jaboticaba45's list. Even just a couple of years ago, when I started growing it, there was almost nothing online about it. Now, there is an effort to push it as a new specialty fruit.

[mangoba]

I would like to add Caimito. Obviously I'm biased as I'm not living in the tropics but I still think the fruit is underrated.

[fliptop]

Mammee Apple

[TheORKINMan]

Mammee Apple

I hope so. When I was first getting into this based on fruits I had tried living in Miami and I meant to buy a Mamey Sapote and bought this instead now I have a 3 foot Mammee Apple tree that seems to be doing well

[Aaron]

 Abiu

and i agree with the others on atemoya, kwai muk and mammee americana

[JoeP450]

Agree w abiu, but I also really dig grumichama and wish I had bags of em. Excited to try kwai muk someday but I dig lakoocha which I hear is similar.

-Joe

[tru]

wax jambu (samarangense), chill them and eat them in one big bite. As a kid I never tried 'rose' flavored things because I thought 'roses are flowers, obviously they aren't going to taste good' ...... I can't believe I missed out for so long

[CGameProgrammer]

To me, a lot of tropical fruits are unpopular for obvious reasons - difficult to eat or questionable flavor (especially older cultivars).

However I think sapodilla (aka chico sapote) is definitely underrated; apparently it used to be gritty but current cultivars, such as Alano which I have, are delicious and very easy to eat. They should be much more popular but nobody knows about them.

Canistel (and ross sapote) are another. Certainly plenty of people don't like them (texture usually), but I think the good cultivars are very enjoyable.

[fruit nerd]

Theobroma bicolor (mocambo) and Theobroma grandiflorum (cupuassu). More common but still hard to buy here - Artocarpus integer (cempedak) and Pouteria caimito (abiu)

[Epicatt2]

After reading that kwai muk is apparently cold tolerant enough to survive here in Florida 9b that convinced me to try growing it. 

This species, from the descriptions of the fruit and its flavor that I've read about, sounds clearly underrated.

Paul M.
==

[brian]

...

I will add Kadsura to Jaboticaba45's list. Even just a couple of years ago, when I started growing it, there was almost nothing online about it. Now, there is an effort to push it as a new specialty fruit.

I was reading about kadsura and daguetia recently and they sounds interesting but it looks like from the pictures there is hardly any flesh?  Have you tried it?

And has anybody actually tried yangmei fruit? 

[Jaboticaba45]

...

I will add Kadsura to Jaboticaba45's list. Even just a couple of years ago, when I started growing it, there was almost nothing online about it. Now, there is an effort to push it as a new specialty fruit.

I was reading about kadsura and daguetia recently and they sounds interesting but it looks like from the pictures there is hardly any flesh?  Have you tried it?

And has anybody actually tried yangmei fruit?

Kadsura has very little flesh to seed ratio. I was able to read another collectors take on the fruits and he said it was just more ornamental the edible. But again, I and the whole community would like to wait more until the jury is out. Especially since it was only one person.
Seems cool that I could just plant them outside here. Even if it is more ornamental.

several people have had yangmei fruit. And it seems to be decent.
I talked with someone who had some but they said it was good, but had some bitterness? Or something like that I forgot.
It has to be a good fruit given that China's production acreage is triple our apple production. The hype this fruit has recieved the last few years is amazing.

[Okvid]

I've tried a yangmei juice drink at a Taiwanese restuaraunt. It has a herbal taste that is pretty quintessential of chinese medicine. If you're not accustomed to the flavor, you probably won't like yangmei.

[TheORKINMan]

I've tried a yangmei juice drink at a Taiwanese restuaraunt. It has a herbal taste that is pretty quintessential of chinese medicine. If you're not accustomed to the flavor, you probably won't like yangmei.

Ostensibly Yangmei is the flavor called Yumberry in the berry mix Skittles packages 😄

[K-Rimes]

There are a lot of really good eugenia that I think go unnoticed or under valued. Cherry of the Rio Grande is crazy productive for me, it's really easy, it's more cold hardy than you think and it's tasty.

Thanks to this thread I bought a kwai muk to trial here.

[Jaboticaba45]

There are a lot of really good eugenia that I think go unnoticed or under valued. Cherry of the Rio Grande is crazy productive for me, it's really easy, it's more cold hardy than you think and it's tasty.

Thanks to this thread I bought a kwai muk to trial here.

I don't think you will be disappointed.
I have 3 of them and don't plan on getting rid of them anytime soon.

I hear the CORG sometimes has bad taste, but again once you find the good variety you can always topwork. I have ben's beaty and calycina.
That's a eugenia I'm looking forward to trying.

[ben mango]

Dabai - very tasty, calorie dense food. If I ate a kilo I would be full for hours. Seem like a pain to harvest and I’ve heard only 1 in 10 trees will produce a female tree but still doesn’t make sense to me why they aren’t more commonly grown outside of Borneo. Taste I would describe is something between an olive and an avocado. Definitely in my top 10

[Longranger]

Is anyone in Southern California getting good quality fruit from Kwai Muk?

[seng]

Java plum.  Good cultivars have small seeds.  Tenderized to reduce astringent taste by gently shaking them with a pinch of salt and ground red pepper until the fruits are very soft or broken.

guamuchil.  Good cultivars are big and sweet.

[pagnr]

Hi Seng,
I have some Java Plum Syzygium cumini  growing in a Citrus / Grape growing region. Seems fairly tough but only flowers slightly, not fruited,  for the first time this year.
Are you growing Java Plum in CA / San Diego ?

[W.]

...

I will add Kadsura to Jaboticaba45's list. Even just a couple of years ago, when I started growing it, there was almost nothing online about it. Now, there is an effort to push it as a new specialty fruit.

I was reading about kadsura and daguetia recently and they sounds interesting but it looks like from the pictures there is hardly any flesh?  Have you tried it?

And has anybody actually tried yangmei fruit?

Kadsura has very little flesh to seed ratio. I was able to read another collectors take on the fruits and he said it was just more ornamental the edible. But again, I and the whole community would like to wait more until the jury is out. Especially since it was only one person.
Seems cool that I could just plant them outside here. Even if it is more ornamental.

several people have had yangmei fruit. And it seems to be decent.
I talked with someone who had some but they said it was good, but had some bitterness? Or something like that I forgot.
It has to be a good fruit given that China's production acreage is triple our apple production. The hype this fruit has recieved the last few years is amazing.

No, my plants have not fruited, yet. But, it is a fruit I am very excited about. All the writings and video reviews I've read about Kadsura heterclita and Kadsura coccinea indicate that they are very delicious. Jared, the Weird Explorer, likened it to lavender mixed with citrus, and his was overripe and turning brown. Another reviewer described it as a mixture of lychee and mangosteen; his was not overripe. The flesh-to-seed ratio does seem to vary, but it looks better than many jaboticaba varieties I've seen going for big money on eBay. It may never become a commercially successful fruit, but it looks like it might be a winner for home growers.

The person whose review you read may have been talking about Kadsura japonica, which, while the fruit is edible, is a more commonly used as an ornamental plant and has been planted in the US since at least the 1940s (there are examples planted by E. A. McIlhenny at Jungle Gardens on Avery Island, Louisiana that have been there since before 1945). Kadsura heterclita and Kadsura coccinea are grown for their fruit in their native Southeast Asia and are apparently very recent introductions to the US.

[Galatians522]

On the nut side, I think hickory and probably hecans (hickory x pecan hybrids) are very under rated. The taste of hickory is excellent, the knock is getting them to crack out cleanly However, that might be solved with further hybridization with pecan.

[seng]

Hi Seng,
I have some Java Plum Syzygium cumini  growing in a Citrus / Grape growing region. Seems fairly tough but only flowers slightly, not fruited,  for the first time this year.
Are you growing Java Plum in CA / San Diego ?

Yes, San Diego.