How To Choose Durian, 5 Feature

Durian "The King of all fruits" comes in all variety and taste, and how to really enjoy differentiating each one from outside? This is done by Smell, Weight Ratio, Texture, Shape, Color, & Sound. By knowing a combination of this feature one basically can conclude what the resulting flesh or pulp inside the fruit whether it is ripen or not, sweet or better, fleshy or big seed, yellow or white color pulp.
The following method of selecting durian fruit is applicable to the exotic wild or semi wild variety. Durian with TAG like D24 or D29 don’t need all of this test, for it got it own unique feature.

Smell will determined two basic features, the ripeness & the eventual taste of the fruit. A ripe fruit will yield a sweet pungent smell, while an unripe fruit will not yield this smell.

Weight Ratio will determine the thickness of the fruit flesh compare to it seed. Heavy fruit could mean either one of this two, unripe fruit or big seed, low pulp ratio. For the seed is heavier than the pulpy flesh. Light fruit means thick flesh small seed. The best is big fruit with abnormally lightweight.

Texture will determined the harvesting nature of the fruit and/or the ripeness of the fruit. Firm & fresh looking fruit means the fruit is fallen harvest (provided it passed the other test). Welting or dried up stalk could mean the fruit was harvested unnaturally, by hand pick or by a process of tying a metal wire round the tree trunk to exhaust it from water supply those dry up the fruit stem forcing it to fall prematurely. Fruits harvested this way will not be as sweet & tasty as a properly ripen one.

Shapes of the fruit do reveal a few things. Durian with sharp small thorn would normally yield low flesh and heavy seeds. Big thorn normally would yield fleshy fruit.
Go for elongated, big fresh thorn, lightweight fruit.

Color of the skin will not necessarily determine the color of the pulp. Green Durian normally would yield white flesh, and Yellowish or Yellow skin would normally yield yellow flesh. How to really know this beforehand? Dip your fingernail into the fruit stalk to see the color inside. The result will correspond to the color of the pulp inside. Yellow colored stalk will result a yellow flesh & white color white flesh.

What sound got to do with durian? Well if you plug the thorn similar to the way you would play your guitar, it will produce a high pitch or low pitch. High pitch = freshness or unripe fruit. Low pitch plus soft thorn = overripe fruit. By shaking the fruit & if you could hear the rocking sound that is a good choice.

My perfect choice: - Sweet Durian should be....Smell =Sweet, Weight = relatively light, Color of Stem = Yellowish, thorn yellowish to yellow, Texture = Firm & large thorn, fresh skin & stem, Shape =elongated, giving me the “rocking” sound on shacking.

Bitter durian can be determine from the strong "bitter" smell, and normally comes from dark green color fruit.

Extra Clue: Fruit with split end is sign of overripe. Borehole indicates worms or insect larvae. It would be a good fruit provided the worms didn’t finish it before you. Squirrel hole or bite indicates good durian too.

Note: There a few unique variety of durian that don't need this test, namely the red meat yellow skin durian locally know as Buah Pakan & the thorny round type, Buah Isu, as long it produces the sweet smell you got it right. The cultivated tagged durians like D24 or D29 don’t need all the above test . You still need to test the ripeness of the fruit thou by smell & texture.

Got your best exotic Durian? Maybe you would like to keep it for a prolong enjoyment. Read this:- Durian, How to Keep It Fresh For Months