Lychee
SNAPSHOT
Description: Lychees are a sweet, translucent, gelatin-like delicacy enjoyed by the Chinese for over 2000 years.
Made for snacking, just crack the shell with a fingernail, pull back the top skin and pop the rest in your mouth. Just don’t eat the seed!
Besides being an excellent source of vitamin C, lychees also have an abundance of oligonol thought to have anti-oxidant and anti-influenza virus actions.
Lychees are enjoyed like grapes. Chilled, they’re a great addition to fruit salads. They can be cooked in a sweet syrup and even canned.
Freeze lychees in a freezer bag with the skin on. The fruit should keep up to a year. The skin will discolor but the flavor will still be there.
Also know as: litchi and leechee.
Taste: Sweet, fragrant and juicy, similar to grapes
Selection: Choose greenish- red to red shells that are heavy for their size.
Ripening: Lychees are picked ready for eating.
Season: late May through June
Brooks Origin: Florida