Worlds Most Expensive Fruits

 Japanese people are renowned for their appreciation of quality, harmony, and beauty. Their music, their clothes, and their art all reflect this. What is less commonly recognized is that their fruit exhibits this pursuit of perfection.

This has inspired farmers throughout Japan to produce exquisite "designer" kinds that are offered for exorbitant prices in Tokyo's upscale fruit shops, which are immaculately packed.

If you enjoy fruit, watch out for some of these fantastic inventions that are now being exported outside of Japan. However, there is no Japanese monopoly on expensive fruit. We've visited China in search of a lucky charm and the UK for an unexpected taste of the tropics to round out our list. Enjoy!

Yubari King Melon

Price: Range from $200 to $45,000 per piece

The Yubari King melon is the most well-known of all the expensive fruits in Japan. Expect to pay around $200 for a melon in Tokyo's specialty fruit stores. They are treasured as status symbols and as gifts. To mark the tenth anniversary of its mineral water with melon flavor, a beverage firm paid an eye-watering $45,000 for a pair of Yubari King melons in 2010!

As their name suggests, they are only grown in the province of Hokkaido's small city of Yubari. These rockmelons were first created in the 1950s and are a hybrid of Earl's Favorite and Burpee Spicy.

Their extraordinary flavor results from their cultivation methods and the rich volcanic soil in which they are grown. They require 100 days to produce, are given helmets to shield them from the sun, and are massaged daily to generate the ideal lattice patterning on the rind.

They are highly valued for their aroma and flavor, which combine pineapple characteristics with a sweet and mildly peppery flavor.

Japanese Ruby Roman Grapes

The price range for Japanese Ruby Roman Grapes is $90-$450

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Expect to pay between $90 and $450 for a single bunch of these expensive and unusual grapes. That is if you can locate them, as only 24,000 bunches are picked year. This 2008-developed, low-acid, juicy cultivar is solely produced and distributed in Japan's Ishikawa prefecture.

Before being sold, each bunch is put through a thorough inspection to assess its flavor, size, and the uniformity of its distinctive crimson color. Additionally, each Ruby Roman grape is as large as a ping pong ball.

They are divided into three groups: premium, special superior, and superior. Amazingly, only one or two bunches are designated as "premium" each year, meaning they are highly valued. For instance, a single cluster of Ruby Roman grapes fetched $20,000 in the year 2020.

Densuke Watermelon

Price: each watermelon ranges from $250 to $6000.

The Densuke is the most costly watermelon in the world and is produced in small quantities on the island of Hakkaido in northern Japan. Prices range from $250 to $6,000 per item.

Densuke watermelons have dark green to black exteriors that mimic more widely cultivated kinds. They do, however, have few seeds and a distinctive sweet flavor.

How do you know the watermelon is an actual Densuke? Each one is packaged in a cardboard cube for safety and comes with a certificate of origin as confirmation of authenticity.

Taiyo No Tamago Mango

Price per unit: $50 to $3,600

The English name for these mangoes is "egg of the sun." Despite only being grown in the Miyazaki prefecture in the Kyushu region, they come from the Irwin mango cultivar.

These premium mangoes range in price from $50 to $3,600 and are highly sought after because of their unique color and high sugar content. They might be any color, from the deepest shades of red or orange to purple. Even the skin, which has a meltingly delicate texture, can be eaten.

These beautiful fruits' popularity has just lately spread outside of Japan, as evidenced by the fact that Israeli and Indian farmers have only just begun to plant them.

 Square Watermelon

Price: each watermelon ranges from $100 to $800.

Perhaps a chopped watermelon is the answer to this urgent issue if you feel annoyed with how much room huge watermelons take up in your refrigerator. And I assume you'd be willing to pay a little bit extra.

Aside from its unusual shape, $200–$800 may appear exorbitant for a typical or garden watermelon. You'll be glad to know that a square watermelon may be purchased for as little as $100.

To make them simpler to stack, square watermelons were first produced in Japan in the 1970s. A young melon is confined into a box, which it will fill as it grows, to create the desired shape. Your storage issue will be resolved, and the flavour is identical to other watermelons. A square melon is a great novelty fruit to serve your visitors if you want to get them talking.

White Jewel Strawberry

Cost: $10 per unit

In the Japanese prefecture of Saga, just one grower produces the $10 per fruit White Jewel strawberries. You won't need to purchase as many because they are around three times the size of an average big strawberry.

The pigment anthocyanin, which gives strawberries their customary crimson or deep pink color, is absent from strawberries, giving them their white tint. Strawberries called White Jewel are exceptionally delicious and smell like pineapple.

A particular hybrid cultivar is cultivated in the dark to accomplish this. Therefore, the most fabulous White Jewels will maintain their white tint, unlike some specimens that may begin to develop their natural reddish color when exposed to sunshine. And you will be surprised to know that it has a taste and smell similar to pineapple instead of being bland or sour.

Sembikiya Cherry

Price per box: $160

Small glasshouses are used to cultivate sembikiya cherry, where they are rigorously inspected to ensure that they satisfy the exacting standards for this premium fruit in terms of size, color, and quality. Each one must be the same size and color for optimal visual appeal.

When they are fully ripe and sweet, you can get them for about $160 in stunning, artfully arranged boxes of 40 at Sembikiya, Tokyo's most renowned luxury fruit shop.

Pineapples from the Lost Gardens of Heligan

Pineapples from Europe are just to show that rare and pricey fruit is not just limited to Japan. Only in Cornwall, UK's Lost Gardens of Heligan, where they are painstakingly raised in a Victorian glasshouse known as the pineapple pit employing a method from the 18th century.

For the pit to heat up and the pineapples to reach their full sweetness, sufficient amounts of fresh horse manure and hay soaked in urine are needed.

Since so few of these pineapples are grown each year, they are not readily available on the market. However, the anticipated price for one, if it were to be sold at auction, is an eye-watering $16,000. However, because they are never sold, they are distributed among the Heligan crew working in the incredibly productive garden.

Buddha Shaped Pear

Cost: $9 each

We're concluding with a true showstopper in the world of luxury fruit just in case you weren't wowed with square melons, perfectly formed cherries and grapes, or even perfectly formed grapes.

This juicy delicacy, in contrast to those mentioned above, comes from the Hebei province of China, where Mr. Xianzhang Hao has created a magnificent Buddha pear in his backyard. So this ends in an incredible shape? by forcing freshly produced pears to take the shape of the mould by placing them inside it. He removes the mould once they have outgrown it, yet they continue to develop into the ideal Buddha shape.

His inspiration came from a Chinese legend about a fruit with a magical Buddha shape that could be eaten and would make the eater everlasting. Given that, it is understandable why these pears, which can be purchased for a pitiful $9 each, sell out as soon as he can grow them.