I was growing Mocambo (Theobroma bicolor) a few years back. A very tall and narrow tree, fast grower. It was a single tree, and I’m not aware of there being any others anywhere near my town. Still it bore fruit freely, unlike the neighboring Cupuaçú (Theobroma grandiflorum; it’s flowered plentifully, but refuses to set fruit without a pollinator). I sampled the fruit repeatedly, at varying stages of ripeness, and found the flavor highly unappetizing, like a chemical cocktail. The tree eventually died due to unknown reasons, the last fruit disappeared under ambiguous circumstances, so I didn’t get the chance to propagate it. With its foul taste, you’d think I’d be glad to be rid of it, yes? Nope.
To start with, while I was interested in the pulp, I was far more interested in the seeds, which are said to be nuts on par with Macadamia in terms of quality. I never tasted them, couldn’t figure out a way to release them from the pulp. I’m hoping that, just maybe, that tree was an exception, and that more common genetics would yield tastier pulp. Even if that doesn’t turn out to be the case, I feel I’ve solved the issue of preparing the seeds. My roaches! If the fruit turns out foul again, I can just feed it to my hissing roaches, and they’ll clean up the seeds for me. With that in mind, I recently ordered some seeds and am growing about 5 seedlings.
Have y’all ever been disappointed when growing a new fruit? And have ya ever felt a desire to grow it again despite the disappointment?
The old tree:
The current seedlings:
