Our first “lab” was the sampling of over 45 different tropical fruits and plant parts from old world and the neotropics. We tasted, smelled and touched the different plants, and I liked most of them, and almost all of them are more nutritious than what you will see in the United States. My least favorite to taste was sugarcane, it was too sweet!

We as “Americans” should be eating more plantains and yucca fruit, they are much more interesting in taste and more nutritious than bananas and potatoes. My favorite was called Guacuya. It was green with a smooth outer skin. and was a smooth sour taste, almost like a weak chaser if you don’t like lime. The best part was that the flesh was runny like egg yolk, so I would simply swallow the interior in one gulp. Most of what we tried were very established fruits that are eaten often in central and south america, but there was one fruit, Noni that is a favorite of bats. I should have smelled it before reading the informational placard for it, but it tasted mild, not outstanding in any way. It smelled like human vomit! It is a brownish fruit with stringy flesh and has a lot of water in it.

I have a list of everything I tried, so if you have any questions about a particular tropical fruit you may have heard of, ask me and I will let you know if I tried it.

This week we visit a coffee plantation, where our Boa Constrictor was found and hear the grower’s perspective on the global coffee economy. I will likely be tasting many different Costa Rican coffee blends here and will need help from my family and my Colorado friends in going through the bag I intend to buy here!