It’s lychee season!!!
As you can tell I’m super excited. Every summer I eagerly anticipate the arrival of many fruits, but the two most in particular that I love are cherries and lychees. Lychees are generally available around here in San Diego in late July through mid August.
Lychee tend to look slightly different depending on what country they are imported from. These ones I photoed, I purchased from Ranch 99, and they were imported from Taiwan. I absolutely love the red hue of the skin.
For those unfamiliar with lychee, it’s a tropical fruit (originally from China) that is usually a little bigger than the size of a cherry (around 1 1/2 times bigger). It has an exterior shell which you must peel off. The flesh is translucent. When you bite into it, juices will immediately squirt out. The juice of the lychee is syrupy sweet so it’s almost like eating candy rather than eating fruit.
I’ve found the best way to eat lychee is to peel half the shell, then it will pop out of the other half pretty easily. I usually put the entire lychee in my mouth because I don’t want the juice to squirt everywhere. I then I spit out the pit.
I’ve heard the fruit pronounced two ways: lee-chee and lie-chee (with a long” i” sound). I prefer the long “e” sound as it sounds more like the chinese pronunciation.
I have a lot of fond memories of eating lychee. I was first introduced to it when visiting my grandparents in Taiwan. One year, my grandfather was able to arrange bringing an entire small lychee tree to his building, so that we could pick lychee from the tree. We had so much fun. After every meal would be a huge bowl of lychee to eat. Eating them was like eating candy so I just kept eating until the bowl was empty.
If you are looking for lychee, you should be able to find them at any Asian grocery store or a specialty tropical fruit store.
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Comments (35)
I've tried it in a can. I got it at an Asian food market, very delicious!
I had my first lychee this summer. It was in mid-June in Chicago at my favorite grocery store (Treasure Island). I enjoyed it and the price was reasonable too.
LOVE lychee!! Kinda funny, actually, cuz my mom bought some yesterday since they were on sale for $3/lb. And I love it so much! Also love cherries! lol You have good taste in fruits :D
yep, love 'em
For some reason I taste bubblegum when I eat Lychee. It freaks me out but its soo good.
y'know what the BEST chinese fruit is?
yang mei.
rare and mouthwatering, omgdrool.
Actually, the Cantonese pronunciation sounds like lie-chee. You're thinking of Mandarin lol. It just depends what dialect you grew up with I guess
I usually look forward to getting some longan (dragon eyes). One of the things I miss most about being near a real Chinatown (I used to live in NJ, so I went to Chinatown with my family a lot) was access to ripe longan when it was in season. I moved to Las Vegas last year and was disappointed in the selection. The ones I got from the markets here weren't juicy at all. So sad. ._.
@AznPr1nc3s5@xanga - That's what I was thinking, too.
Love! Before I leave Chinatown in NY, I have to bring a bag home.
OMG A TAIWANESE PERSON!
I also love lychee. The lychee in America is nowhere near as good as the lychee in Taiwan though.
I love lychee and longans... 2 sweet and yummy fruits. You can eat them fresh or make juice with them! Yummy!
Lychees are AMAZING.
I can't get enough of lychee fruits. I just can't.
I LOVE LYCHEE!! <3
I don't know where to buy them, though :(
I just recently had one for the first time, wasn't really into it.. but ate the whole thing anyway to be polite.
It's like eating flower petals!
I love lychee. I don't really know how to describe the taste - it has its own distinct flavor. Though when I eat it I think that I'm eating a bunch of flower petals because it tastes and smells like flowers to me... I couldn't find any fresh ones at our Asian market, but I did find some canned ones.
we have those as a topping at the frozen yogurt place i work at. they look creepy and smell really weird. aha.
I had lychee and longan today. It was perfect for such a hot day!
@AznPr1nc3s5@xanga - Yeah, my dialect of Chinese is Teochew, and it's pronounced with a long "e". It's kinda interesting how the English translation enables people to pronounce it differently but correctly at the same time.
longan > lychee
This is a perfect entry for bringing awareness to summer fruits because I love fruits and I love lychee. I love the fruit, the smoothies, the lychee bubble tea, and anything lychee that you can think of I love!
I also love longan as well! Both sweet and delicious!
I have never had them fresh, I may have to go hit up China Town this weekend
yumm, there is nothing better than fresh lychee, in a can is not the same.
We sell them at whole foods, a lot of people have no idea what they are. But since i work in produce i get to try everything, and i tried them the other day and they tasted like poop. But then i tried them again later on and they were pretty good. They're red like those too.
Love lychee.