Longan is a southern fruit, as famous as ginseng from the north, and its seeds can be used to brew alcohol.
National Day is almost here, and once again people all over the country are on the move during the peak travel season, the so-called October Golden Week. Taking advantage of the holiday, many people choose to travel, admire the great mountains and rivers of the motherland, and sample the local specialty foods. This golden autumn season is the peak time when all kinds of fruits hit the market. If people from the north travel to the Lingnan region, they can see a very delicious fruit that enjoys a reputation equal to that of ginseng from the north. As the folk saying goes, "longan in the south, ginseng in the north" - this is the longan, honored with the name "wisdom-boosting fruit."
Longan is a fruit used both as food and medicine, with a very long history of medicinal use. It is recorded in ancient Chinese medical texts such as the Compendium of Materia Medica, which regarded it as a tonic for strengthening the body. It is warm in nature and has the effect of nourishing the blood and strengthening the brain, which is why it is called the wisdom-boosting fruit, and it is especially suitable for women and the elderly. After being dried, longan can be kept for a long time. Southerners use dried longan to make soups and sweet desserts; it tastes so sweet that not even sugar is needed. Moreover, because longan seeds contain starch, farmers can process them specially and use them to brew alcohol.
In fact, longan is a common fruit in the south. Its yield is very high, and with the development of agricultural technology, longan, like lychee, now comes in many varieties for people to choose from - some with higher sweetness, and some with thicker flesh that are better suited for making preserved fruit. In the Lingnan area where longan is grown, the terrain is mostly mountains and hills, which is very suitable for cultivating longan, and locally there are orchards covering tens of thousands of mu. Farmers also rely on the advantages of these orchards to develop multiple industries, combining tourism picking, processing and sales into one, avoiding unsold stock during the peak longan season.
Like many fine southern fruits, longan is a "fresh-by-the-day" fruit, meaning its shelf life after picking is very short and it must be sold as quickly as possible, or it will rot. This is also a disadvantage of southern fruits: they cannot be stored for long in cold storage, and in terms of staying power they are no match for northern apples and jujubes. But their advantage is also obvious. As the saying goes, things are precious when they are rare. Fruits that are common in the south become highly sought after in the north after being transported there by logistics, and their prices rise accordingly. Hopefully one day technology will advance enough to keep fruits like longan fresh for a long time, so that they can be eaten in any season.