I am afraid the name pineappple guava comes from the unfortunate trend to rename any exotic or unknown fruit in terms of the familiar.
It’s a feijoa and it tastes like feijoa.
The name pineapple guava comes from our inability to describe something new in terms of the known.
It is probably true that a lot of people are more willing to try, buy and eat a ‘pineapple guava’ rather than a ‘Feijoa’ because that may be something that sounds strange and foreign to them, so it is understandable that we see these names come up.
When I try to give people unknown fruits to taste I always introduce it under the native name and then say something like ‘it tastes like a mix of known fruits A &B’, because that is what people really want to hear, but I do make a point of it to introduce the fruit under it’s own name.
So it is understandable someone came up with the terms like pineapple guava, strawberry guava, tree-tomato, Brazilian cherry, wild peach and others for fruits that have nothing to do with pineapples, strawberries and cherries.
I wouldn’t look too hard to find those flavors in Feijoa’s, Araças, Tamarillos or Pitangas, etc. Those are just fruits with really interesting flavors that have their own characteristics and range of variability.
I think it’s more than perfectly fine to use colloquial names for fruit, especially to those who aren’t as into this hobby as us. If I give someone a guava and tell them it’s psidium cattleyanum I’m not teaching them anything I’m simply being a bit of a prick. With feijoa it’s a bit different but that is about the flavors that you seem to object to rather than the colloquialism of the name.
This is a common occurrence when describing food of all kinds. If someone has never eaten alligator or frog, people will say “it tastes like chicken”. Which is short for saying this is a tasty meat which you will like if you enjoy chicken. Not necessarily that they taste the same. With fruit it’s even harder I’d say because so many things vary wildly but they tend to fall under a sweet/tart/acidic/astringent profile. So saying x tastes like pineapple mixed with a guava is saying this has a sweet and floral aroma with the gritty texture of a guava. I don’t take things at such face value, I am happy to call fruit by whatever name will make people try it.
I routinely have people try my mutingia calabura, however I tell them it’s a cotton candy berry.
Yes, I agree, that is exactly my point. With the difference that I would never use Latin names to describe a fruit, that is not what I meant. I meant that almost all fruits that come from somewhere else already has a local name that is perfectly fine for me. To insist on using Latin names would make me indeed be a bit of a prick.
I don’t object to anything, people can call everything just what they want - I was just saying that you shouldn’t look for pineapple flavor in a Feijoa. And that you don’t have the wrong cultivar, or did something wrong with fertilizing or watering if you cannot find that flavor in it. Because there is no pineapple flavor in there. Just as that there is no strawberry flavor in red Araça’s, or strawberry guava.
The fact that you still call an alligator an alligator and not a green swimming chicken illustrates my point. Alligator is the original local name for the animal. To compare it to chicken is a great way to describe new things, but not really to name them. All these exotic fruits and animals usually already have a name. A local name, of course, but to me it seems perfectly fine to use that.
Off topic but fun fact, tamarillo was made up by New Zealand marketers to make the fruit sound more exotic and less like a tomato, since they cost more and don’t really taste like tomatos. It was just known as tree tomato before that.
They cultivate their own unique citrus varieties, those feijoa varieties, and of course tons of kiwis. They also grow mountain papaya, tamarillos, passion fruit, boysenberries, persimmons, macadamias, pepino dulce, and who knows what else.
To say nothing of their very well regards wine grapes or their large export market for apples, blueberries, stone fruit, currants, and other common fruits. They grow a lot of olives too, because why not flex on everyone else. And the North Island has recently gotten into the banana business.
Apollo started dropping this Friday. This is my first time tasting it. Takaka produced last year and definitely is an earlier bearer and more prolific.
There are larger fruit still hanging, but the smaller ones are falling first for some reason. Definitely smaller than I expected, averaging 50g or so a piece…
Ill test the brix on the next batch, but this was very sweet. No grit, with the tartness as you get closer to the skin. Excellent flavor here, and I see why it’s a New Zealand perennial favorite…
I tested some Apollos and some went to 15 brix. Very sweet. I would say it’s my favorite flavor feijoa so far. The skin is thicker than the newer NZ ones, but still. Very little graininess and very sweet.
Also, all my late ones are dropping now. My seedling and Waingoro started dropping this week. Very strange as Apollo still has a few left hanging.
I have to chalk it up to the heat and lack of rain we had this year…
Waingaro is even sweeter, 18 brix! No tartness or acidity in the one I checked, but maybe the other 2 will have a different balance. So I like Apollo a tiny bit more. But despite just having 3 fruit, the sizes were all over the place. Usually a few fruit means they all gt largish, but had a tiny one in there, which is what the NZ literature states. Skin on Waingaro is very edible as well. so if you want sweet fruit with low grit, this is one to pick.
So the only one that has any real hang time is Apollo. All my other ones drop within 2-3 weeks. So I cant tell which ones ripened what time since I just dumped each variety in one pile. Maybe next year I’ll remember to segregate each variety by ripening order.
So far, the later ones almost always have higher sugar levels. The early ones really can’t compare, at least in the south. The seedlings which are late, just hang longer, and seem to have more time to generate sugars.
I have an alberts supreme at another location, but it hasn’t fruited yet. That is a late ripening Mark Albert variety which probably would be delicious.
So im trying to get more late ripened varieties like white goose and wiki tu for the future . White goose didn’t take, but I hope for better luck next spring. Hopefully I can eventually get wiki tu…
So for southeast, the heat ripens all varieties faster as long as we have enough water. So an early variety that ripens in September just doesn’t hang long enough to get super sweet. And the earlier ones seem to flower later. So good if you have a short season as they dodge the late frosts and ripen early , but not so good for longer seasons with high heat
Double checked on the pnw thread and @ramv has Arhart still hanging as of last week. Meanwhile my later varieties are dropping. My early Takaka was finished a month ago. @757Will had Kakariki start 2 or 3 weeks ago as well.
Now the PNW growers early varieties probably taste better than our early ones though…
I’ve got three seedling plants for grafting to, so I think over the next few years I’ll start trying to get ahold of more really late season varieties. I recall someone saying the fruit can take light frosts without issue, which means, at least for my area, I could probably get away with varieties that don’t ripen until late November. In accumulated heat units that’s probably like April in the PNW, lol.
At some point someone in the South will need to put together a large collection of the early varieties and find out which early ones actually taste good in our climate. There’s got to be at least some variation.
Also, if Takaka finished for you in mid September in 7b… man, there’s no chance for cool weather before mine ripen down here.
Technically, I am nowadays in 8b so probably starting to push the chill hours on these now. Changing the zone on the profile now. That’s how fast these zones are Changing. I know Portland is technically 9a but I think they stay cooler a lot longer than the SE does even if we drop lower on a few nights…
And I am putting early varieties at a larger location this year to see what happens. Kiateri is known for being sweet so it probably will be the winner.
In Ga nowadays, you’ll have to get to the Tennessee border to get back to 7b, so mid and late varieties it is for us…
It looks like the heat does accelerate ripening, but I guess there is a minimum amount that works for most of us.
“Flowering and ripening of the fruit can be advanced by eight weeks in warmer climates compared to cold climates (Duarte & Paull, 2015). Furthermore, climate change impacts tree phenology (Ramírez & Kallarackal, 2017). However, fruits produced in cold weather are supposedly of better flavor than those produced in hot climates (California Rare Fruit Growers, 1996). This was confirmed in a study carried out in Colombia by Parra-Coronado et al. (2015a) for feijoa fruits from clone 41 (Quimba), where they found that the fruits produced at higher altitudes (cold weather) are sweeter than those produced at low altitudes (warm weather). Barrero (1993) reports that adequate temperatures for feijoa production in Colombia are between 13 and 21°C (average 16°C).”
So thats 60f, which PNW can easily do…
Also you will have the larger fruit as well
" Also, a temperature of 18.3°C produced smaller fruits (38 g) than those that grew at 12.3°C (69 g), indicating that feijoa is rather a cold-weather crop of cool Andean highland conditions. "
Just to chime in with my experience. I live in Atlanta, zone 8A, and I’ve grown a seedling feijoa, Takaka, Waingairo, Kalteri, Anotoki, Coolidge, and Unique (all but the seedling from Restoring Eden) for the past two years. So far I’ve gotten just a few fruits off Takaka, Unique (by far the most productive and precocious bush that I have had so far), and Kalteri. The Takaka was the earliest for me and I liked it the least. It was grainy and somewhat sour. It was the largest. The Unique was smooth and quite sweet but was pretty small. There are a bunch more fruits on the bush that are currently hanging. The Kalteri was between the Unique and the Takaka in size but it was as sweet as the Unique.
As far as growth, all of the shrubs are doing well and have made it through six degree lows with protection their first winter. Last winter it got down to eleven degrees twice, separated by two weeks, and it stayed below freezing and quite cold for 72 hours each time. They all made it through without protection and just a little leaf burn. The most vigorous growers are Kalteri, Anatoki, and Waingairo, but those have the most sun. Coolidge is the slowest grower, by a lot, but it has the most shade.
I went in pretty heavy on these, wanting to create a fruiting, evergreen hedge but having never tried the fruit. When I first tried Takaka, I thought I had made a mistake. But I’ve been much happier with the others that I have tried.
My Kakariki and Takaka have finished dropping all their fruits about a week and a half ago. The last week has been Anatoki and Nikita. I have planted Waingro and Ramsey this year and I am hoping they follow nicely into late October/November.
