Why does wampee fruit taste on the sour side?

About the author: One Hand Brush One Hand Flower: Landscape architecture major, has deeply loved plants and nature since childhood, hopes to always work in plant-related fields, in this world only beautiful flowers and delicious food cannot be let down, Weibo @One Hand Brush One Hand Flower

Wampee fruit, the moment you see it, your mouth fills with sourness. When it is sour, it can be said to outdo even passion fruit, and it is extremely appetite-stimulating. There is a saying, "Eat lychee when hungry, eat wampee when full" - look how sour it is, it can even aid digestion. Wampee fruit is a typical southern fruit, because it is not easy to store and transport, generally it can only be eaten in its place of origin. For example, in our Guangxi, this is exactly the season to eat it.

Wampee (Clausena lansium) belongs to the genus Clausena in the family Rutaceae. Is it called this name because its fruit skin is yellow? It sounds really simple and crude, and it also has the alias huangdan - anyway, it is all about being yellow.

May, the young fruit of wampee

The wampee tree is a small tree, with tender leaves in fresh green and old leaves in deep green, odd-pinnately compound leaves, and leaflets arranged alternately. The flowers of the Rutaceae family tend to be rather plain and elegant, and the flowers of wampee are also fragrant small white flowers. By May, the tree is already full of green fruit, making one's mouth water. Wampee is a summer fruit; in June, it begins to come onto the market one after another, and in July and August, those are even days when you can eat to your heart's content, with golden-yellow fruits hanging in clusters on the branches, as if inviting you to pick them.

I picked a handful of fruits. On their yellow skin there were still many black spots. When I peeled the skin, the flesh inside was crystal clear, revealing the green seeds within, and for a moment it had the texture of cat's eye stone. Locally, most fruits contain 1-3 seeds, while other varieties may have even more seeds. The seeds are quite good-looking, mostly green with a small part yellow, and it felt as if I were holding precious gems in my hand.

by Gustavo Giacon

https://ciprest.blogspot.com/2017/01/clausena-ou-wampi-clausena-lansium.html

Among sour wampee of the same variety, the fruit from old trees is sweeter, with a suitable balance of sour and sweet, and is more delicious. Wampee also has some purely sweet varieties; some have fruit skin that is slightly lighter in color, and some have fruit shapes that are a bit more pointed. You can eat more of them at once without worrying about your teeth going sour from acidity, but they just lack that wampee flavor. In addition, Nanning, Guangxi also likes to make a kind of wampee sauce with full flavor, made from the same genus's Clausena excavata, also known as shanhuangpi.

Purely sweet variety

I posted photos of wampee fruit on WeChat Moments, and my cousin working elsewhere said he had not seen wampee fruit for many years. It is not that wampee fruit is necessarily so delicious; it is just that this fruit, which cannot be eaten elsewhere, carries a strong taste of home.

Illustrated by Li Zengli

http://cnki.hilib.com/CRFDHTML/R200908046/r200908046.93091d.html

Author: One Hand Brush One Hand Flower

Images: One Hand Brush One Hand Flower, Jiang Mouren (unless otherwise noted)

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