The Ambarella

 Despite being tropical, the ambarella has proven to be quite hardy and is very fast to become established in the subtropics. The fruit set begins after only three years.

The Ambarella tastes like a mix between pineapple and mango, but with a crunchy texture. The flesh nearer to the peel is quite sour, but gets sweeter near the seed. The ripe fruit is also much sweeter than the less mature green fruit. In Indonesia, they are steamed and eaten as a vegetable with salted fish and rice, and in Sri Lanka the raw fruit is mostly eaten fresh or cooked in a curry with chili.

As they mature, the skin turns golden-yellow with an orange-yellow pulp surrounding a single large spiny seed. When ripe, they have a pleasant pineapple-like fragrance. With similar growing conditions to the Mango, the tree thrives in humid tropical and subtropical areas, growing up to 2 metres in a single growing season.

It grows on all types of soil as long as it is well drained. The trees are cold sensitive when small and should be protected from serious frost and strong wind. The trees do best in full sun, but will produce some fruit in light shade. As the Ambarella is a large and vigorous tree, it prefers not be planted underneath other large trees, and unlike some mango varieties it is not too fussed on salt spray

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