Persimmon Tree
It is persimmon season throughout the Yangshuo region. I find this fruit quite a curious one as it more than just a pretty orange ball crowded onto bare branches. With a skin smooth like a tomato and a fleshy, fibrous inside when very ripe it’s slightly sweet in taste.
On doing a little bit of research on the persimmon I have found that if eaten before they are ripe they can cause something known as a bezour in your digestive system or stomach. A bezour is apparently an indigestible mass (a hairball is a type of bezour) which in the case of un-ripened persimmons has, perhaps even more bizarrely, been treated with Coca-cola – although surgery is usually necessary in a high percentage of cases. And to top it all off, it is said to have the ability to bring on diarrhea when eaten raw but when it’s cooked it does the opposite.
If you have spent any time around the markets of China you will often see a round flat, dried fruit that is a deep, rich orange colour – these are dried persimmons.
