Waxberries

A quick post about a favourite Chinese fruit of mine. It's called a waxberry, also known as a Chinese barberry or Yangmei 杨梅. It's dark purple and looks as though it has an inedible skin and one would expect it to be difficult to eat. However, the skin is soft and the interior succulent and delicious. The flesh has a pleasant softness to it whilst also offering enough resistance to give it a pleasingly solid consistency. It tastes rather like a cross between a grape and a blackberry, so by all accounts completely delicious. I can happily report, after experiments in the field by my baking expert Celia, that this fruit works well in crumbles. The season is relatively short and I usually rely on street sellers to buy from here, of which there is no shortage during the season. The season seems to be from around May to June and thankfully the aforementioned expert thought to freeze a tupperware box full. I wonder, could one make fruit wine from these? Most probably yes.