Jambu = Syzygium AKA bell fruit, roseapple.
AKA wax apple AKA black pearl (Chinese).
Yeah they got a lot of names for that fruit!
Ah, I’m with you now. Not heard jambu before.
I do like lien-wu, and we’ve got some in at the moment, but this CNY it’s the zao-zi that’s doing it for me.
Can any kind soul give me an address where I can buy seeds or cutting of the famous Taiwan Long Mulberry? I will appreciate it very much. I love Mulberry and I grow a few varieties. Perhaps anyone who has a tree will be kind enough to sell me a cutting. Thank you very much!
They seem to sell fruit around … July? You can grow from seed and it will come true (more or less). I have a couple of seedlings growing in the Philippines. Several months old and a few inches tall.
If you don’t want to wait, whatever you want is typically available online, and Customs aren’t that bothered as long as you’re only importing a few seeds. The only problem is that mulberry grows really slowly. From seed, it’ll be a few years before you get fruit.
As they say, the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago.
Thank you very much for your quick response. I do realise it’s easy enough
to buy seeds online. But as you correctly remarked. . we should have
planted 10 years ago. This is why I need a cutting from an existing tree
that bears fruit. That’s the only way you can be sure you will get fruit.
And it’s very easy to grow from a cutting. You can get fruit within a year!
I am visiting Taipei this week and hope I can find one cutting… Beg,borrow
or steal! Thanks again!
Well, you could check out the flower market. They have (slightly) different stuff every weekend, although I have to say, I’ve never noticed any mulberry.
OK. Thanks!
The Buddha said the world (or maybe just the Indian sub-continent depending on the scope) is shaped like a jambu fruit (Jambudvīpa). The fruit originated from India and South East Asia, and originally looked more like an ellipsoid.
People in China had no clue what the Buddha meant by the world is shaped like a jambu fruit, since they’ve never seen one. Early translations for jambu in Buddhist texts includes 閻浮, 贍部, 瞻婆, and 琰浮.
Jambu was introduced to Taiwan by the Dutch, who had plenty of jambus in Batavia (Jakarta). 蓮霧 (lian-bū) is a Taigi transliteration for Jambu.
Whats that ? 
Interestingly, the first place I tasted a 蓮霧 was in China. But the ones in Taiwan, especially the Black Pearl variety, are much better. One of the few fruits in Taiwan that actually live up to the hype.
I just found out that kiwifruit isn’t native to New Zealand, but instead is native to central China. The English first brought seeds back to England in 1904, and introduced it to New Zealand afterwards. First commercial exportation of the fruit from New Zealand was back in 1952, when the fruit was still known as Chinese Gooseberry. In order to promote this fruit as a New Zealand product, they begin promoting it as Kiwifruit after 1962, and that name only became internationally accepted in the 70s…
Kiwifruit was known as 獼猴桃 (Macaque’s peach), 毛梨 (Furry pear), 羊桃 (Goat’s peach), and 陽桃 (Sun peach).
Star fruit, which is called 楊桃 here in Taiwan, is actually native to India. Cantonese and Hokkien merchants that first saw the fruit named it 洋桃 (Peach from the sea), and that got corrupted to 楊桃 here in Taiwan…
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I’m sure your Chinese is 1000x times better than mine, but wouldn’t 洋桃 mean “foreign peach”? Correct me if I’m wrong. In Korean, it would definitely mean that- typically meaning Western (things that start with 洋, that is- not this particular combination of two characters).
洋 is literally ocean, and figuratively “from over the ocean,” i.e. foreign.
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hansioux was probably giving a literal translation. Like I said, I’m sure his Chinese is way, way better than mine.
樹梅 are here again. Love those little guys
back in Canada my roommate and i threw away a yellow watermelon because it was yellow. We thought it went bad. Now i know they are usually yellow over here in taiwan
We had a professor visiting from Europe recently. HE was amazed that watermelon juice was a thing.
but do they make juice out of the yellow ones? i bought a yellow one once when i was a noob. didn’t really rate it much.
I’ve really been getting into the red dragon fruit this year. The next morning, after coffee surprise scares me every time, though.
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