Ill try to make this brief. I had a cruise scheduled and one of the stops last week was in Porto, Portugal. On a whim I PM'd Miguel PT (member of this forum) to see if there was anyway I could finally try this fruit fresh, knowing he grew yanmgei successfully, he was harvesting now, but not knowing the distance between Porto and where Miguel lived, turned out it is almost 2 hours away. We only had the day in Porto and no room for getting lost or car problems not to mention we had an excursion scheduled that day already. Somehow Miguel pulled some strings and got 6-8 lbs of 3 different yangmei types delivered to the Harbor Master in Porto waiting for me when we arrived!
Miguel really went above and beyond and made the trip so much more meaningful for me. I have been grafting and growing yangmei since I first heard of it. I have purchased grafted plants from the last 3 imports coordinated through this forum by Bill. And I'm happy to say I loved the fruit-and so did my wife and the 2 kids we brought. I loved the fact that there was such variability between the 3 varieties he had. It met my expectations and then some. Because Miguel sent so much fruit we had a bit of a fruit tasting event on the ship. Many of the cruise workers come from places where fresh fruit-straight from the tree- was more common than fruit harvested early and purchased from a store. We had people from Belarus to Africa, Asia, S. America, you name it, try the fruit and all loved it. Staff were actually seeking me out and asking if they could try some! Miguel labeled the 3 different varieties and I provided him with a quick break down of what I thought (and from the input of others) the differences were. Those descriptions, along with pictures are below.
I do want to give a shout out to Miguel for going above and beyond in furthering our common pursuit of experiencing rare fruit! He certainly is a pioneer in the rare fruit world in Europe!
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Across all three, there is a cranberry/Thimbleberry flavor only much more juicier, like a plum. If you are from the Pacific North West USA and have done any hiking, google Thimbleberry, you've likely tried them off the trail, they are not commercially grown but there was a definite Thimbleberry tone throughout all 3 varieties of yangmei.
F5-P1:
Darkest
Biggest
Very sweet and with a touch of tart like pomegranate with some having a very slight (not bad) resinous flavor. Miguel later mentioned he though any resinous flavor might be the result of being slightly overly ripe. This is likely since it was not in each sample tested.
F1-P5:
Smallest
Second darkest
Has yellow stem entry points similar to Wusu
Grape notes
Flowery flavor
Least favorite
F2-P3:
Medium size
Lightest color, modeled between light red and orange
Most tart of the 3 however still sweet. Definite hint of rhubarb.Sweetest to the outside
Cherry like but more condensed flavor
Biggest seed to flush ratio
Remnant of flower remains at top of fruit in many samples.
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