Buah Long Long Juice

The name was bewildering enough for me that I didn't need to think of any creative twist for this post's title... I'd never have guessed that there'd be a fruit named "buah long long"... but well, yes, it does exist. The official name is Spondias dulcis, and buah long long is how the Singaporean Chinese know it. It's known as kedondong in Indonesia, pomme cythere in Trinidad & Tobago and some other countries, June plum in Bermuda and Jamaica, juplon in Costa Rica, golden apple in Barbados and Guyana, jobo indio in Venezuela, cajá-manga and cajarana in Brazil (see, they couldn't even decide on one name in the same country), amra in Malaysia, and quả cóc in Vietnam. That's a mind-boggling list of names if I've ever seen one.

What's more amazing is that its juice is being sold by a rather common food stall. We found this at a branch of the food stall chain 1983 @ JEM food court, Singapore. Pardon the menu image for being pixelated as it was taken from quite far away. Buah long long juice didn't use to be so rare in Singapore when my parents were growing up, so it was my dad who noticed it on the menu and ordered it.

The fruit sediment had settled to the bottom in this case, leaving the yellowish juice on top. Otherwise, it's an apple green when fully stirred. This stall also added a sour plum into the drink, as was a common practice in pre-modern Singapore. It's that dark brown round ball in the menu image, and the slightly darker patch at the bottom, in the middle of the dark green sediment.

It tasted like the blended juices from a sour green mango and rose apple or jambu as we know it here. There was this sourish but also grassy element, similar to the sour green mango, but also this slight apple-like fragrance and feathery element, like a rose apple. I could also taste sourness from the sour plum. Very refreshing overall!

Unfortunately, this stall added way too much sugar, so it was unnaturally sweet. Perhaps a bit of sugar would have been fine, but this was just too much. So that ruined the experience and prevented me from just chugging this down. Hopefully, the next time I visit, they'll be able to add less sugar for me.

Also, if you read the Wikipedia page, the drink I had was apparently from the relatively unripe fruit. The ripe fruit is supposed to be yellow to orange, and it tastes something between a mango and a pineapple. That would be another interesting experience...

Still, I was very happy to have discovered something relatively exotic, and easily accessible to me!

Found this drink interesting? Check out more unusual drinks here, such as unusual fruit-flavoured soymilk drinks (fig, kiwi, carrot, nashi pear and Kyoho grape)! If you're feeling more adventurous, how about trying some civet cat poop coffee aka Kopi Luwak?

Also, if you don't live in the tropics, fruits such as buah long long might be highly unusual to you. Preserved Rosella Snack, dragonfruit mooncake or redbean pineapple mooncake, fermented black garlic and boiling chempedak seeds after consuming the fruit might also be interesting reads.