Lychee

Tropical Fruit Growers South Florida; we’re an association of farmers that specialize in growing tropical fruits.

Right now we’re in a grove in southern Florida, in The Redlands area; I’m here to talk about Lycee (laichi) or “leechi”, it doesn’t matter how you want to call it. In Spanish they call them Mamoncillo Chino.

Lychee has been grown and cultivated in Asia, especially China, where it’s native to, for thousands of years. And also here in South Florida, thanks to our subtropical climate it’s been growing very well since the early nineteen hundreds.

Lychees grow at the end of branches in clusters like you see right here. They have a mild to sweet fragrance and they’re usually harvested with the branch and the leafs, and then sold by the pound.

We’re here in the kitchen now, we’ve got our Lychees out, as you can see they’re nice and red, they have a nice sweet fragrance. All you’ve got to do if you want to eat one of these, is just pop it open, peel the skin and put in your mouth. The seed is just about the size of an almond, there are other varieties that have even smaller seeds, all you have to do is throw away the seed or just put it in your compost, and that’s it. They’re delicious.

You can leave your Lychees out in the open on the counter, they’ll last about a week. You can put them in Ziploc bags, put them into the refrigerator and they’ll probably last about a couple of weeks. If the skin turns from red to brown, don’t freak out, you can still eat them. If you want to put them in the freezer they’ll last you up to a year.

There’s a lot of different ways to enjoy Lychees, mixed drinks like martinis, ceviche, salads, deserts… go check out our website TropicalFruitGrowers.com for some really good recipes.

What are you waiting for? Contact a Lychee grower right now at www.TropicalFruitGrowers.com.