CONTRIBUTED BY SARAH PHILLIPS
At my husband’s almost-every-other-day stop to our local fruit stand he picked up something new that we’ve never tried before: rainbow kiwi.
A search online of rainbow kiwi didn’t bring up much but I did find them under the name “red kiwi fruit”. From what I’ve read, many kiwi fruit are exported from China or New Zealand but these come from Fukuoka, Japan. They bag my husband bought was distributed through the JA company. He grabbed the last bag at the fruit stand for 100 yen. It contained about 6 kiwi fruit!
On the outside they have a few visual differences from a typical kiwi fruit. They look a bit smaller and do not have as much fuzz on the skin. The fun part is when you cut one open. Inside they have a red center with a gold color as you get closer to the skin. There also seems to be less seeds than regular kiwi fruit.
The taste of these kiwi fruits is the best part! They were not tart at all but very sweet! Some kiwi fruit seem to make my tongue dry up out of tartness but these are sweet like candy. The easiest way I’ve found to eat them is to cut them in half then scoop out all the flesh of the fruit. We’ve enjoyed them on their own and also in smoothies.
We haven’t seen these again since my husband bought them but it’s only been a few days. They may be available at normal JA markets (the one he got these from isn’t a JA store) so it is worth a look. If you do happen to see these at a fruit stand or store make sure not to pass them up thinking they are an ordinary kiwi fruit!