An intro to Japanese Fruit- August 2 and August 6, 2020

Dash
Dec 3, 2020
4 min read

Japanese fruit is an experience unto itself. Just like every flower's 'season' is celebrated so is each fruit's 'season'. For example, strawberry (ichigo) season is January through May. Berries of different varieties are commonly grown in hot houses and you pay to eat all you can straight from the plants. Berries are available for purchase to bring home for later. We haven't partaken in the all-you-can-eat experience because the idea of eating that many strawberries in one sitting makes my stomach hurt. The strawberries in the grocery store during their season are always big and beautiful. While it can be 'hit and miss', I have had some of the best strawberries I have ever eaten here. Unfortunately, they are too expensive to be a regular part of our diet even when in season.

Currently it is grape, blueberry and peach season so we decided to take a day trip and explore "fruit country", aka Yamanashi prefecture. We started at Senka Orchard. After some communication difficulties we were given a generous sampler of fruit to try.

I was shocked to realize we were given the sampler for free. The peach (momo), in particular was HUGE! It was about 4 inches across!

We enjoyed our samples and purchased a couple of peaches before exploring the farm. I am not sure why they put hats on the grapes.

This variety of grape was really long and thin compared to the others but we did not get an opportunity to taste them.

Our next stop was Fruits Farm Hagihara. They have a cafe in what used to be a 100 year old home and have been designated as a World Heritage site. The cafe has an incredible view so we ordered some ice cream parfaits and made ourselves comfortable.

We left the farm after purchasing two more peaches (of a different variety than our previous purchase). By then we felt a strong need for some lunch with 'real food'. We ended up eating at a small Thai restaurant that was very good.

Everyone knows, where there are grapes, there is wine so our next stop was a local winery.

Unfortunately, tastings were not available due to COVID so we purchase two bottles based on the recommendations of the staff (who thankfully spoke English) and planned to enjoy them in the near future.

We didn't feel a need to see another farm so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the Fuefukigawa Fruit Park.

The views were incredible. I could see really enjoying a show at this amplitheater.

The building shown below houses the fruit museum. We decided not to go in as it seemed to be geared more towards kids and we preferred to stay outside.

The next building is the Fruit Plaza. It is a concert venue that also contains a cafe, and an indoor garden. We briefly wandered through it before heading back outside.

We decided to explore the winding trails along the slopes covered with a large variety of fruit trees.

I am fascinated with the way the Japanese trim trees. They aggressively cut them back to the trunk and a few large branches. As you can see with the apple (ringo) tree below the fruit is growing right against the trunk from fresh shoots because all of the smaller branches had been cut back previously.

In the photo below you can see a walnut (kurumi). I don't think I had ever seen a walnut tree before.

Figs (ichijiku):

Pomegranate (zakuro):

Persimmons (kaki):

After we left the park we stopped to check out some of the fruit stands set up just outside the parking lot. I would like to briefly discuss Japanese grapes now. They have multiple varieties, some of which are huge, but what they are known for is the $25 bunch of grapes (I don't know the species). Yup, $25 for a bunch of grapes. We didn't plan to buy anything else (especially expensive grapes) but.... One of the vendors was giving samples and once I had a taste of the BEST peach of the day I HAD to buy more peaches. He was offering a box set with peaches and two types of grapes for $50. We decided we could pay this insane amount once "for the experience" and brought a box home.

Check out the size of these grapes! Each was 1.25-1.5 inches long. The dark one was a bit sour. The green one was the $25 variety and it really quite good but I don't know about $25 good. The peaches were good too, but overall I think the peaches in CO are better.

Before heading home we stopped by one more winery. This one was doing tastings. Poor Dave couldn't have any since he was driving so I got to have all the fun. Not surprisingly we left with a few more bottles of wine.

A few days later I found myself blueberry (buruberi) picking with some friends. It was not an all-you-can-eat experience. We were given up to an hour to pick as much as we wanted. Afterwards, they weigh how much you picked and charge you based on the weight.