When I landed at Jagatsukh (in Himachal Pradesh, India) I saw this strange fruit with even stranger name of Japani being sold. I even asked why was it called Japani but the lady selling it just said that it was the name of the fruit. I suspected a Japanese connection but then forgot to explore more. Today I did a search and realized that it is actually called Persimmon and it is a native of Japan and China.
The outer skin is a bit hard and bitter so I started to peel it off. The flesh is sweet and tender and to me, at least, tastes like a milder version of Mango. I was actually tempted to write ‘a poor cousin of mango’ but then I have eaten just two Japanis (no no the fruit) and I will like to try more before I conclude about it being the ‘milder version’ or ‘poor cousin’ of Mango.
Didi,
we had this tree in our backyard from past 1 year and did not realized till it started giving fruits. Our landlord who is Chineees tols me this is Japanees orange 🙂 and when we looked around in the market it was Persimmon. It is really sweet and and very popular around this time of the year in California. My landlord says if you store them and allow this to dry it becomes like rasin.. But it is really good one.
cheers!!
Ruchi
I love it, and I wouldn’t call it the mango’s poor cousing 😉 You’re so lucky that you are surrounded by these wonderful fruits – it’s a bit pricey here (or am I just too cheap ;))
I have never seen it before….. Really colorful…. Following your blog is so interesting……
It must be great to have the entire tree in the backyard Ruchi, do post pictures on FB when it flowers and of the fruits too!
Fida that settles it, then I won’t call it the poor cousin of Mango.
Debopam I also saw it for the first time in this trip only.
Interesting find there!
Yes Meena. 😀
Persimmons come in two shapes round (in your photo) and long (kind of conical in shape). You can eat a fully ripe persimmon with its skin – no need to peel them. I prefer round ones as long ones make my throat very itchy. Got dozens of these last week – it’s persimmon season (winter) in Central California. Since I am from Lucknow, I will never compare persimmon or any other fruit with mangoes. There are only two categories of fruits – Mangoes (especially Malihabadi Dushahri) and everything else 🙂
Atul I saw the conical ones too but ate only round ones. And I agree about the Mango comment but I have to agree with Fida too 😀
Looks exotic. Available any place else in India ?
No Idea Rama.
This fruit is not available below Himachal as it was not even available in Punjab and Haryana. I never heard it about before my trip to Manali. Our Cab driver introduced it to us. Even we were incredulous about the name and even thought that some Japanese explorer might have invented it here ;).
This is getting popular around the Himachal Pradesh. I am from dehradun and saw this strange fruit out skirt area ( ON Delhi Highway-Road side) of Roorkee. Because I was in the bus and going to Delhi from Dehradun so i could not get the information about this.
On my next trip, when i reached Dehradun, I saw this fruit at many fruit shop and they named it RamPhal (रामफल ) and it was available at price of INR 180/KG.
i have some more information regarding this which i will post later. Thanks everyone for such a nice post.