Name: Longan; long nhan in Vietnamese (translated "Dragon's eye")
Brand: no stickers
Place of Purchase: From a tree in Central Florida
Country/Region of Origin: native to Southern China and SE Asia.
Product Origin: Vietnam
Price in Iowa: My in-laws are Tai Dam, so they often get free stuff at the market, but these babies are usually $5 a pound.
Description: fruits are cherry-like, with a hard, leathery skin. When the skin is peeled away, a white, translucent fruit is revealed. A large, brown pit occupies about 1/3 of the inner fruit. When canned, the fruit is more milky white and opaque, and there is no seed.
Flavor: sweet with a musky aftertaste; similar to lychee, except for the aftertaste
Aroma: grass and citrus
Texture: moist, gummy and firm
Mouth-feel: much like a firm, gelatin candy, but juicier
Notes: I've had longan before, but always canned in juice or syrup. The canned variety is very sweet, probably due to added sugar, and softer in texture than the fresh variety. Fresh longan come in bunches on the stem (imagine a bunch of cherries if they weren't picked from the branch). Their skin can be juicy, but since these came from Vietnam they were dry and leathery ('like the skin of a toad'). According to my wife, you don't want to eat them until the skin is dry. Otherwise, the fruit sticks to the skin. The fresh fruit was less sweet than the canned, and had a strange aftertaste. The flavor reminded me of the smell of ginko fruit, but not as strong. Still, the firm flesh of the fresh fruit was quite pleasant in comparison to the canned variety. I would recommend these to anyone interested in SE Asia fruits/cuisine, but for everyday eyeball eating, I would stick with lychee.
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