Tuesday 5 August 2014

It's good to be a Kiwi... Fruit!

The cave of vines surrounded us, our bags rustled as we scanned the rows for gorgeous, green gold. The sun was dropping slowly, I was in heaven!

Today we were lucky enough to go kiwifruit picking at our neighbour's kiwi-fruit farm, after previously selling their goods, the family business decided it was time for the vines to have a rest - commercially speaking!  So they invited us to pick and take as many as we wanted! (lucky us)
And so it got me thinking, I don't really know much about kiwifruit so I decided to find out some more....

 Some people overseas call it "kiwi"

The kiwifruit or Chinese gooseberry (often shortened to kiwi), is the edible berry of a woody vine in the genus actinide  

It has a fibrous, dull greenish-brown skin and bright green or golden flesh with rows of tiny, black, edible seeds. The fruit has a soft texture and a sweet but unique flavor, and today is a commercial crop in several countries, such as Italy, Chile, New Zealand, Greece and France.
Cultivation of the fuzzy kiwifruit spread from China in the early 20th century to New Zealand where the first commercial plantings occurred. The fruit was called "yang tao" but was changed to "Chinese gooseberry" by the New Zealanders.

It proved popular with American servicemen in New Zealand during World War II. Because of this the fruit was exported to California using the names "Chinese gooseberry" and "melonette". Because the California based importer rejected these names the fruit was re-branded "kiwifruit" after the kiwi(bird) as the bird and the fruit share a similar appearance and both are associated with New Zealand.

Here is a slideshow with a few photo's to help explain my wonderful experience!

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