nut trees, coffee trees, mango trees, giant avocado trees, papaya, pineapple, lilikoi, and breadfruit trees. But, the great thing about this Hawaiian tropical climate is that most anything will grow here. Even these Brazilian Jaboticaba trees.
Recently we had an abundance of Jaboticaba fruit on our backyard tree. If you are unfamiliar with this fruit then you should know that it grows on the trunk and branches of the little tree. The fruit itself is plump like a grape or plum and dark purple in color. It has the taste of cherry grape and the texture of a grape. It is very interesting.
My girls and I decided to pick the fruit off of the Jaboticaba tree. With the mountain breezes and shade of the tree it was a nice experience. Picking the fruit was like picking a plum or plucking a grape...it's almost as fun as pulling carrots. It took 2 hours to yield 2 full pans of fruit. The tree still had fruit left that needed to ripen before being picked. We were glad because we had picked enough! We rinsed the fruit and dried them on large towels.
I thought I'd try to make some Jaboticaba jelly. Sounds easy, right? Except, I had never really made jelly or jam before. This was going to be a learning experience. So, I juiced all of the fruit and made 20 jars of jelly out of half of the juice. After a water bath, the jars were sealed, cooled and ready to store. Being too tired to make another 20 jars, I froze the remaining juice for a later date. Which I think was a super clever idea. Great flavor and great in a pb&j sandwich.