The Delicious Fruit Treasures of Lishui
Hi everyone! My name is Amy and I'm from the beautiful city of Lishui in Zhejiang Province, China. Today, I want to tell you all about the amazing local fruits that grow in my hometown. Lishui is famous across China for its incredible variety of tasty and nutritious fruits. We have so many different kinds that I can't even name them all! But I'll do my best to describe some of my personal favorites.
First up is the lychee. These tropical fruits grow in bunches and have a rough reddish-pink shell on the outside. But crack one open and you'll find a sweet, juicy white flesh inside with a single glossy brown seed. Lychees are sweet with just a hint of tartness. They're so refreshing to eat on a hot summer day! I love peeling them carefully and popping the whole fruit into my mouth. My grandma makes the best lychee juice and lychee popsicles too.
Another iconic Lishui fruit is the longan, which is similar to the lychee but with a few key diff
erences. Longans are smaller and more round, with a golden-brown shell. The flesh is translucent white and clingier to the inedible black seed inside. While lychees have more of a grape-like texture, longans are richer, more firm and slightly drier in taste. They're still incredibly sweet though! Longans are one of my dad's top picks for snacking.
Then we have the amazing waxberry, also called the Chinese bayberry or yangmei. These look like elongated red raspberries and grow in clusters. The taste is tart and tangy at first, but then a delightful sweetness kicks in. Waxberries make wonderful jams, juices and wines. In the springtime when they're in season, I love going to the local farms with my family to pick fresh waxberries right off the vines!
丽水土特产 Pomelos are another mouth-watering specialty of Lishui. These are those huge, thick-skinned citrus fruits that can be as big as a cantaloupe! Pomelos have a soft, pale yellow flesh that separates easily into segments. The taste is like a sweet, milder version of grapefruit but without any bitterness. Pomelos make a great snack on their own, but my mom often uses them in salads and desserts too.
Moving on to tropicals, I have to mention our amazing production of pineapples. Lishui has the perfect warm, humid climate for growing plump, juicy pineapples with a candy-like sweetness. Just the aroma alone smells like paradise! We eat tons of fresh pineapple, but it's also used to make dried pineapple snacks, pineapple cakes, and even pineapple-flavored ice cream.
Not to be overlooked are our luscious red bayberries, which resemble larger cranberries. These tart little fruits pack a big punch of flavor and make fantastic juices, jams, and sweet-and-sour sauces. I especially love the super sweet and tangy bayberry candies that we get around the holidays.
I could keep going and tell you about our amazing bananas, papayas, star fruits, persimmons, and so much more. But those are some of the highlights of Lishui's renowned fruit harvests. All our fruits are grown locally on small family farms using natural and sustainable methods. That's why they're so fresh, tasty and high in nutrients.
We take a lot of pride in our locally-grown produce here. That's probably because for ma
ny centuries, fruit cultivation has been a huge part of Lishui's agriculture and economy. Lishui has the perfect warm subtropical climate for growing all these tropical and semi-tropical fruit varieties. We're located in lush, fertile river valleys that provide ideal soil and water conditions too.
In the springtime, it's common to see the hills and valleys just covered in fruit tree blossoms of white, pink, red and yellow. By summer and into fall, the same landscapes burst into vibrant shades of green, orange, red and purple from all the ripe fruit dangling from the branches. It's seriously a fruit-lover's paradise!
Lishui has many different micro-climates within a fairly small area, which allows such an amazing diversity of fruits to thrive. We also have developed special techniques over many generations for growing and harvesting premium quality fruit. Things like precise pruning methods, using organic fertilizers, carefully controlling sunlight and moisture levels, and choosing exact harvest times make all the difference.
Our local farmers live off the land with great respect for nature. They nurture the fruit tree
s and vines with incredible care and patience, using wisdom passed down over centuries. Maybe that's why Lishui fruits have such remarkable, unmistakable flavors - the fruits truly are a labor of love.
I feel really lucky to grow up in a place with such a rich fruit-growing heritage and to have access to all these exotic fruits year-round. At home, on the streets, u see fruit everywhere you look in Lishui! We incorporate it into every meal, drinks, snacks, desserts, you name it. Plump, ruby-red lychees and longans always make an appearance at family gatherings and holiday celebrations.
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