Lychee

I have had a can of lychees in our cupboard 

for quite some time, waiting to find some fresh lychees so I could do a taste comparison. 

Yesterday I spotted some lychees at the checkout counter of a local Asian market and I was quite excited to try them. 

I turned my sister, Merilee, and her family into guinea pigs, to do a taste test with me. Lychees were originally grown in China and are now grown in portions of Thailand, North Vietnam, Japan, northern India, South Africa, Florida and Hawaii. They grow in a tree (picture from Wikipedia) 

and have a thin, tough, skin that is originally green, ripens to red 

and turns brown when left out after harvesting. 

Underneath the skin is a filmy membrane (see top center and bottom right)

followed by a translucent whitish flesh which covers a smooth brown seed. 

The skin peels of easily, 

but it is a little harder to remove the seed and its residue than it is from the comparable longan or rambutan. The canned lychee 

tasted better than the canned rambutan (Judy likened it to canned pears) and it fares better against the fresh lychee 

than the canned rambutan to fresh rambutan. In fact, several of Merilee's family liked the canned lychee better than the fresh lychee. The fresh lychee was not as sweet, because it was not sugared, but the plump, springy texture and fresh taste were better to me, but I must say that canned lychees are good. I've had lychee milkshakes at a local noodle bar and quite like them. Lychee is becoming one of my favorite fruits. Lychee is one of the 1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die.