Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Southern China Lychees

The Lychee is a delicious fruit that grows in abundance in the Southern provinces of China. The fruit is covered with a reddish shell and the flesh is juicy and succulent. Think of it as alienberries.

During my last few trips to Southern China, I had been wanting to purchase a few baskets of Lychees but my staff always told me to wait until the Lychees got sweet. Well, this trip they told me that it was now time to buy the damned Lychees.

I was brought to a makeshift market outside a railway station where there were several stalls in a row selling Lychees exclusively. It was a good thing that I came with somebody because the Lychee sellers were extremely aggresive and pulled at my clothes (f87kers!) to come over to buy the fruit from them and not another seller.

Each stall had about 3 baskets, each a different variety of Lychee. It’s important that one notices the leaves attached to the Lychee because a brown leaf indicates that the Lychees were picked the day before - we only want to buy Lychees picked on the same day.

The seller let us sample the Lychees before we bought them. The small-seed Lychees were incredibly delicious. I don’t think I had ever tasted such amazing Lychees in my life. The flesh was bursting with sweet juice and it seemed to melt in my mouth. The Lychees sold in supermarkets back home were crap compared to this.

I bought 10 pounds at RMB4.50 per pound which fit snugly into a box.

It was a bitch handcarrying a box of Lychees back home. The moment I got back, I let my family taste some and they agreed that the Lychees were amazing.

However, the next day, the Lychees started turning brown, and were not that delicious anymore. So now I know - Lychees should be eaten at least 2 days after being plucked.

wah shay first hand info. Good info.

wow they let you travel with perishables?
Anyways, I did not know “real” lychee goes bad that fast. I have some in the fridge since 10 days. And who knows how long be4 that they were plucked. But even now they taste good heh

They taste ok after 2 days. But before that they taste AMAZING!!!

dead fox: Perhaps they did something to the lychees, I mean, they have to make the lychees last for the export period isn’t it?

they usually pluck fruits b4 they r ripe to be exported. thats why they dont have the sun-ripen taste to them when u get them. lychees can be stored in fridge what…. if not, get more monkeys to help u eat.