so these are an acquired taste. it starts off very sweet and slightly tart and tropical tasting then ends with a bitter black pepper, licorice, chemical taste, i think from the skin. you have to wait til very ripe, soft and they fall off easily. if it wasn’t for the after taste i’d say it’s a pretty good fruit.
i have two trees, both around 3 years old. i had bought both from separate sellers online, both advertised as black varieties, so far, the ones i’ve had only mature to a dark red, unfortunately. so i’m not going to try to get another one, too many times have i been sold the wrong trees.
If you got them as seeds (or the people you bought from grew from seeds), I’ve been told that they can revert back to red fruits. I picked some rotten fruit off the street in Palm Beach, a couple were black, a couple red and a couple orange. Since it was a hedge, not sure if they were all from the same plant or not.
I wonder if you blanch them if the skin will peel off and then not have that aftertaste?
Great looking fruit, @jamie! They bring me back to my childhood eating them off my grandparents hedge. As you stated, they do have a unique taste but I loved them as a kid.
I have black and red S cherries. The black cherries definitely taste better than the reds. That being said, I would not plant either as there are other fruits that are much more enjoyable than those. They were on my property from before. They’re interesting and pretty but I prefer mulberries or loquats any day
I have read that if you put them in the fridge for a day or so that the turpentine taste is reduced. I have a Zill Dark and you can hardly detect that taste on it. But as you said you grow to dislike that taste less in time
I second looking into grafting. I have seen others claim to have fruited excellent tasting surinam with practically no resinous after taste. Zill Dark being one of them as mentioned by nana7b
yes, everyone says the black ones are better and i bought supposedly black varieties (advertised as zill) but they both turned out to be red. i pick a few everyday and i’m getting used to the taste, besides, i don’t know where to to get scions or how to graft, so i’m not going to bother.
my other pitanga turned out to be black! i was just impatient, it fruited later than the other and i realized it was getting to be dark reddish black instead of red, i only had two from that tree and they are more mild tasting and they don’t have that turpentine taste at the end. the red ones have that more intense tropical flavor though, and honestly i am getting used to the reds, it amazes me how the taste can vary quite a bit from fruit to fruit from the same tree, some are definitely better than others and have less of a turpentine taste. i never tried turpentine but that’s how people describe it, but i think it’s similar to how black seed oil tastes. i spit out the skin if it’s too strong. oh, the black one is a lolita variety.
