Feijoa
Feijoa sellowiana (Acca sellowiana) · Myrtaceae · also known as Pineapple guava, Guavasteen
New Zealand's adopted obsession — an egg-shaped South American myrtle fruit tasting of pineapple, guava, and mint at once, scooped with a spoon and impossible to buy where it doesn't grow.
At a glance
- Taste
- Perfumed and zingy — pineapple and strawberry-guava over a faint minty, slightly gritty jelly center. The aroma is loud, almost soapy-floral to newcomers, addictive to converts.
- Origin
- Southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina highlands
- Grown in
- New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil, Georgia (Caucasus), Australia, United States (California)
- Peak season
- Autumn
- Notable varieties
- Apollo, Mammoth, Unique (self-fertile), Triumph
Sensory & practical profile
Taste fingerprint
- Sweetness
- Tartness
- Aroma
- Juiciness
- Firmness
Approximate, at peak ripeness · 0–5
- Ripe when
- It ripens by falling — gather fragrant, slightly giving fruit; no colour change signals ripeness, so trust nose and touch.
- How to eat
- Halve and scoop with a teaspoon; the aroma reads as pineapple-guava-mint.
- Typical price
- Everyday
New Zealand binges on it for six autumn weeks — free buckets appear on fences — because the fruit can't travel.
How to select & store
Picking a ripe one
Feijoas ripen by falling — orchardists gather, not pick. Choose fragrant fruit that gives slightly; the jelly center should be clear when cut (white = underripe, brown = past). No color change signals ripeness; trust nose and touch.
Storing it
A few days at room temperature, a week refrigerated — then the interior browns. Kiwis (the people) freeze scooped pulp by the bag for smoothies and baking through winter.
Practical uses
🍽️ Culinary
- Halved and scooped with a teaspoon — the national autumn gesture of New Zealand
- Feijoa crumbles, cakes, and muffins; paste and chutney
- Blended into smoothies and NZ feijoa wine and cider
- The cucumber-crisp petals tossed into salads
🌿 Health & traditional
- Traditional South American use of leaves and bark; the fruit itself trades on fiber and C
🎎 Cultural
- In New Zealand, feijoa season means free buckets on fences and office giveaway boxes — a fruit economy run on generosity because the fruit can't travel
- Soviet-era Caucasus adopted it too; Georgian markets sell feijoa jam beside citrus
The feijoa is proof that a fruit can conquer a nation without conquering a market. A Brazilian-highlands myrtle carried to New Zealand in the 1920s, it found perfect conditions and a devoted public — but the ripe fruit lasts barely a week and bruises invisibly, so it never became an export. The result: an entire country binges for six autumn weeks on a fruit the rest of the world has barely tasted.
A fruit that falls
Feijoas don’t signal ripeness by color; they signal it by letting go. Orchards are gathered off the ground each morning, and backyard trees ping fruit off trampolines all season. If you must pick, cup and twist gently — resistance means wait.
The taste problem (and gift)
Descriptions always turn into lists — pineapple, guava, strawberry, mint, something floral-soapy — because the aroma chemistry (methyl benzoate country) genuinely doesn’t map onto other fruit. First-timers sometimes recoil; second-timers buy bags. New Zealand’s advice: chill it, halve it, spoon it, and reserve judgment until fruit number three.
