August of last year I ordered 3 different cultivars of Mamey from Lara Farms: Lorrito, Akil Especial, and Cepeda Especial. I thought there had been some sort of mixup with my order because all three looked and tasted exactly the same. Later, I saw a Fruitful Trees Youtube video where Julian Lara made a comment that those three are very similar.
That was my first time tasting Mamey and I thought it was okay but not a fruit that I would seek out. I still have some in my freezer to try and make into milkshakes which I've read is really good. To me it tasted similar to American orange sweet potatoes like Garnet. I prefer the taste and texture of Asian sweet potatoes. The Mameys were slightly sweet and I had imagined that the texture would be creamy, but it seemed very similar texture to orange sweet potatoes. The color of the fruits were beautiful.
A couple of weeks ago, I ordered Whitman green sapotes from Lara Farms. I liked the size and texture better than the Mameys. There was some fiber at the stem end and a little around the seed. My family all thought it tasted similar to dried Saijo persimmons with some sweet potato, with the dominant flavor being persimmon. When I say persimmon flavor, I specifically mean dried persimmons which have a more concentrated candied flavor compared to fresh. The sweet potato flavor seems like the sweet potato/ marshmallow side dish that served at Thanksgiving. The green sapote was only slightly sweet but had the flavor components I described, but we all agreed we like the fruit. I read other reviews that describe the fruit as very sweet, so maybe ours weren't at peak ripeness.
The interesting thing though is that the several other fruit that are still in the fridge aren't being eaten. I just had one before writing this post to see if the taste is the same and it was. Not sure why no one is eating them. I'll freeze them to try in milkshakes, hopefully they won't just sit in the freezer for months like the Mamey.
Janet