Lychee season!

June to July was the lychee season in Guangzhou.

The lychee is native to Guangdong and Fujian provinces, and Guangdong is the leading center of lychee production.

In early July, I bought some lychees for 40RMB per kg. By late July,  it’s 8RMB per kg, so you can imagine how much supply there is!

In mid July,  we were having lots of 桂味荔枝 (guiwei lychee), which is earlier in season.

桂味荔枝 (guiwei lychee)

The most plentiful variety available in late July is 糯米糍荔枝 (nuomizi lychee). It’s also called 双肩红（shuangjian hong, red pair of shoulders）.

It’s large, red, thin-skinned and often has small and shriveled seeds (more fruity flesh! Yum!). 

糯米糍荔枝 (nuomizi lychee)

We heard of a famous lychee called 挂绿荔枝 （gualv, hanging green lychee）. It has a strip of green running round the fruit. In the past, it was presented only to high officials and certain people of honour. Even now, it’s extremely hard to get hold of this variety. Apparently, there’s only 1 tree that produces this variety, and half the tree is dead! Lychees from this tree are so valuable that only 1 single fruit is presented as a gift.

What better way of getting fresh lychees than to pick them yourself?

Daan and I went with some friends to pick lychees somewhere near Zengcheng (增城, famous for lychees)，about an hour’s drive from Guangzhou.

The plantation we went to had 300-year-old lychee trees.

Plantation worker climbing up the tree

The branches are held sturdy by ropes, to prevent sagging when the worker sits on the branch to pick lychees.

The person below hoists up an empty basket...

... which the person on top fills with big juicy lychees and lowers.

Sweet!