Jujubes- Our New Adventure

Do these fruits taste like juicy dates?

If youve had palm dates at the basr or bushra stage(ripe but still crispy crunchy) some jujus, like hj and sc do have the texture like fresh palm dates.
There are dense and less juicy palm dates just as there are dense and less juicy jujube dates.
Sugar cane makes great dates quite similar to palm dates at tamaar stage. Syrupy sticky sweet.

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Figured i add what may have already mentioned previously: the juju cultivar sihong is nothing like any of the palm dates or jujube dates when dried. It is something i strongly recommend as dried dates(and as fresh fruit) due to complex fruity flavor and dense, meaty flesh, especially if you like your jujus dense instead of juicy crispy. Most jujus have an apple-ish flavor and texture, but sihong tends to veer towards the plummy flavor profile that intensifies as with a french prune. Sans the laxative effect of actual prunes haha

Plums and apples and jujus happen to belong to the same order that is Rosids

Jujus are literally the bridge between a pome and a drupe, with most having the flesh qualities of pomes, but have a pit just like stonefruit. Sihong seems to veer towards stone fruit

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Very much so. Mine never got to ripen completely. Pictured it is only a sun blush and then it was blown off the tree in a storm. I found it and ate it and although it was good I think it could have been much better with a few more days on the tree.

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I bought two Confetti trees. Most of the fruit was still on the trees. There were at least 12 fruits.

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Thank you so much. Really sweet and sugary! Wow!

Mrs. G,
I know Seceral people who do not care for jujube’s taste, texture, size or all of the above. This includes my husband and my best friend. It is not for everyone.

For some people, it reminds them of apples. You have to try them yourself and try different varieties so you can make a decision if jujubes are for you.

They are just talked about so much, they are very interesting to me. But too sweet is not for me or my teeth! LOL!

Sweet jujubes are not sweet like Euro plums, even if brix may be the same.

In fact, when I eat a jujube with brix at 30, I still feel that it less sweet than a ripe plum with brix at 25. To me, jujube’s texture plays a role in making it taste differently and less sugary.

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yes, jujus are sweet , but i agree, they don’t really taste that sweet if eaten fresh. Jujus are also rich in minerals so that probably influences brix. As dried dates they will be too sweet for some folks.

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In mu country and my zone shanxi li is earlier than tigertooths. Already have some ripened while tigertooths is still green, and today I noticed some damage on few fruits. Must be some insects. I had to cut shanxi li to force it to push some new growth and it was successful. There is no so much fruit but I’m expecting next year to have much more. While tigertooth have a lots, some are still tiny as rice and some is sizing up pretty fast.
Here are photo of first ripened ones. You can notice difference in their size.

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This is the true Confetti ( Конфетный) from Crimea that I grafted this spring onto a stem of Shaanxi Li.
Konfetnyi as its true name is was a reason that I got into jujube growing as I haven’t come across anything better, yet. Usually thornless, very sweet and very juicy, just like a candy. Fruitful as can be seen on the pictures I suspect it could be self-fertile (will evaluate it in the future). It was released in 2010 under the name Konfetnyi in NBS, Yalta, Ukraine. Now it seems to be renamed to Цукерковый (Sugersweet) and plant patented in Russia. This year has not been favourable for plants that I grow and the fruits are not ripe yet, but they will make it just in time.

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Harbin your jujubes are very productive! I must graft some branches onto my trees to see if they will produce more fruit due to cross pollination.
Here is my biggest fruit of shanxi lI. These days will have brown color.


By the way those smaller ones was very good. Even their pits are soft and can be eaten, so I eat them like candy, there is no waste :grin:

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Those were centimeters, right?

To me Shanxi Li needs the right cross pollination partner to produce more.

When I had only Sugar Cane and Honey Jar for partners, Shanxi Li hardly set fruit. Last year I grafted 12 varieties on the tree. This year some grafts flowered and set fruit. This was the first year, I see Shanxi Li set more 30+ jujubes. It produced a total of 7-8 fruit from the first 3 years combined.

It could be that the tree is a bit older so it set more fruit, too.

I can tell you that one year old HJ set a lot more fruit than my 3 year old Shanxi Li.

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Re: Shihong: tasted a few varieties yesterday, and Shihong does stand out, it caught me off guard. Plummy (plumish) is an apt description. Took me a bite to reset my my taste buds, but once orientated, very enjoyable. Certainly a different bit, though.

Is “Li” just short for Liuyuexis?

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Ok now Justin, i had to look it up and google’s aritificial intelligence is just not up to par lol!

Sihong stands out, right? Not particularly juicy but the flavor and density are topnotch. Most jujus are a dessert type, but sihong is more like a meal in itself.
As dried dates it’s also in its own league
In my opinion

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My Shanxi Li are quite large, too.

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The one that are 60-70% brown tasted better than the 100% brown. But “taste better” for it is still not close to Sugar/Honey Jar level.

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I think that was an “is” to end, can’t read my field writing. Anyway, notably tasty among the crowd. That said, I’ve tasted a good number of juju but never had a Li, and if indeed the Liuyuexis is the “all-to-common, often dismissed” Li, well, us jujube fans are in fine shape.

Yes, your descriptions tend to my experience spot on. And with Sihong, its a meal, fit for even a winter’s evening. Its substantive.

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Wait a minute, youve never had li?

I don’t think so! Pretty ridiculous, I know. I always reached for the other options as I figured Li was only a matter of time. I’m a good 12 years into this ‘hobby’.