Lychees — Small Fruit, Big Reputation for a Reason

Native to southern China and grown for well over a thousand years, lychee is one of the fruits that genuinely lives up to the hype — sweet, floral, and juicy in a way that's hard to compare to anything else. The rough, leathery skin is pink to red and peels away easily with a thumbnail, revealing translucent white flesh wrapped around a single glossy brown seed, which isn't eaten. One thing worth knowing: lychee skin browns fairly quickly after harvest even when the fruit inside is perfectly fine — so don't judge purely by skin colour. A better check is the flesh itself once you peel one: it should be firm, juicy, and smell sweetly floral, not fermented. Lychees don't ripen further once picked, so what's in the box is ready to eat immediately.