Durian season started about 2 weeks ago. How many have sunken their teeth into the exotic fruit?
Early Season - My First Scandal
During first week, most durians are MSW. About half the durian are noticed to come with burnt seeds. Quality wise, it was not linked to the burnt seeds.
I just tried a B grade MSW last night and here's my thoughts.
Size : Approx 1.2kg
Quantity : 7 seeds
Review : The smell did appeal to me thus I decided this piece out of 2 I picked out of the lot. Color of flesh was quite consistent, no uneven ripeness. Texture is soft on press, yet not overly soft till approaching runny, the texture that I tends to like, as it is an indication of the taste.
It taste bitter sweet, with a nice lingering aroma up the nostril. Coming to texture during consumption, there is a bit of uneven softness I must say. So that does take a bit of points off. Of the 7 seeds, 5 were small, 2 were full seeds.
I am definitely not one who believes in seed size having significance on the quality, nor am I really bothered about burnt seeds.
Overall, I would give it a 7/10. That is good enough for early season. I'll be back to do another taste test again in the coming days or week.
In-Season 19/11/21
A quick glance as I went past some durian stalls, seems like most are selling MSW. Upon checking, D24 is in stock, but the quality is not up to par yet. A lot of uneven ripeness. So, hold your gun (mouth I mean).
I tends to favour Pahang's year end D24. Rainfall are more ample for year end season, thus tends to be less unevenly ripe (but not sure why the early supply is uneven) while mid year, if I go for D24, it has to be Johor's supply.
I had written before, about weather/rainfall and durians, and why I gathered, that mid year (Johor) and year end (Pahang) D24 are better, and not interchanged.
A Little Insider
Pahang was faced with quite a lot of rainfall during flowering and early fruiting period. These are not good for durian. That partly explains the unevenness of texture (it is not uneven ripeness, but just texture) and also burnt seeds. Another possible cause was over fertilized trees.
Plantation operators are at the mercy of weather. Consumers at mercy of price. It's fair. Plantation operators takes a huge risk. Retailers takes the direct sales risk. Consumers mainly faces price fluctuation. After all, durians are not factory produced products.
Have also been observing retailers selling promo bundle deals of whole durians, at a very glaring price eg 10kg MSW at $200, or even 10kg 'B' MSW at $160. What many are not aware is, the so called higher price illustrated here, is actually larger sized 'B' MSW while the lower price one is still B but lower grade B (eg 3 sides). Yes, even within each grade, it is further segregated, like B+ and B-.
Currently, retailers cannot be selling 'A' grade MSW at $20/kg, as it is very near their cost. Where's their profit? Operating a retail business is very high cost and high risk. I'll not be gullible to blindly believe they will sell A grade MSW at such a price. However, gimmicks are very attractive and will attract a lot of spenders because consumers are always on the lookout for good bargain. I'll leave it as that.
I'll need to kneel on durian shells for exposing the insiders.
Harmless Lust
I've not had good D101 for a really really long time, and not expecting to try it. But I won't hesitate feasting on D101 if it's good.
But I've always had this special lust for a good Tekka. It's not like, the best durian, texture is usually fibrous/grainy but it's an hard to explain fettish. Wasted. Mid year season, I saw some good Tekka but didn't try it. What gotten into me? Maybe the monkey took my brain away.
So for this season, let's hope I can get to try some (1) Tekka, hopefully I get impressed with good old (2) some real XO Durian, (3) D24 XO, if some crustaceans swims to me (4) Red Prawns.
LUST but not least, I need to wash it down with more beer (or a good whiskey... oh man, I visited a whiskey bar recently and had some good whiskey but it's a bit costly tho). Anyone buying?
