Durian in Puerto Rico

A Brief History

Maybe because I’m a complete fruit nerd, but I was dying to know how durian got to Puerto Rico in the first place. It seemed kind of…random. Obviously it was the work of someone who visited Southeast Asia and brought it back with them, but who, and how long ago?

We’ll never know for sure, because it wasn’t recorded. The first durian tree in Puerto Rico was planted over 100 years ago, when the USA had just incorporated (taken over?) Puerto Rico from Spanish rule. Within a couple of years the USDA set up the first Tropical Agricultural Research Station (TARS), a rambling plant paradise set on an old Spanish hacienda. The durian seed was taken from another of the US’s recent acquisitions – the Philippines.

What happened to that first durian tree is unclear, but over the years TARS added more
durians to its sprawling collection. A durian orchard sprang up in the
1960’s, and by 1985 several trees had appeared in the annual plant census. Who planted these trees and where they came from is lost to history.

So durian was there, but nobody really seemed to care about it Brian Brunner and Ian Crown set up their fruit farms in the late 1980’s and 90’s. Brunner brought in cultivars grown in Hawaii, mostly Thai varieties like Chanee and Kob, while Ian imported the varieties popular in Malaysia in the days before Musang King.

Finding Durian in Puerto Rico

I was actually surprised how many durian trees farms I visited had durian trees. Brunner guesses that somewhere between 20 and 30 farms have a handful of durian trees. Durian is more the exotic pet of fruit enthusiasts (who are also more common than expected) than crop or even backyard garden item, but that’s still far more durian trees than I ever expected to find on an island in the middle of the Carribean Sea.

Still the fruits don’t often, if ever, make it to the local markets. To get a durian, you have to know someone who likes you enough to part with one of theirs. TARS isn’t an option, since because it is still a research station visitors are not allowed to pick or eat anything that grows there.

It was really a freak piece of luck that we found a durian for sale on our very first day in Puerto Rico – Jardines Eneida’s, a nursery that also sells small quantities of fruit.

To be honest, it looked pretty terrible. It was a brilliant gold, completely split open and riddled with phytophtora soft spots. After a lot of joking and inquisitive sniffing (mostly by the incorrigible Jay), the group decided that we had to have that durian.

The inside looked beautiful. With some trepidation, I placed the small seed in my mouth and sucked off the thin layer of vanilla cream that surrounded it. “Is it good?” the guys asked me, trying to get the “durian expert” to weigh in. I had to shrug. Yes, it was good – but it wasn’t really good. It tasted like it had been really freaking awesome the day before.

Luckily, I was with a group who already had the “In” at Puerto Rico’s durian headquarters – Ian Crown’s gorgeous, viciously steep farm folded into the Cordillera mountain range.

Commercial Scale Durian

Ian is a fruit enthusiast with a penchant for the outlandish and “cool,” and the first person to attempt growing durian on a commercial scale. I liked him immediately. The group spent two mornings winding up, down and around Ian’s collection of 30-odd ultra-exotic fruit species. There were rambutans and pulasans, abius and rollineas, malibar chestnuts and things I’d never heard of. But the highlight (at least for me) was the durian.

Ian, in his fruit wisdom, had imported five varieties of Malaysian durians, including Ang Har (Red Prawn) and a hybrid of two species, Durio graveolens and Durio zibethinus called Suluk. The season was mostly over, but after combing the hillsides for stray roll-aways, we managed to find quite a pile. Thanks to the fierce tropical storms that sweep through now and then, the labels had been flung to the four corners and Ian didn’t know what was what. He was hoping I could help identify them. I felt honored, and hoped that too.

The beautiful Suluk

I spotted the Red Prawn right away by the shape of it’s spikes and shell, but I wasn’t certain about the others. In fact, I thought the Suluk might have been a D24 until we hacked it open and found a beautiful shade of orange flesh.

Since I didn’t know we had a Suluk in our pile, I opened the Red Prawns first. These were the ones I was most excited to share, as (IMO) it lives up to its reputation as one of the best durians in Malaysia.  The fruits were so fresh I had struggled to pull the two halves apart, getting many offers from the dudes around to help. I waved them off – a difficult durian is part of the fun!

And then there it was – the delicate, mottled pink and grey flesh of a Red Prawn. Just as in Malaysia, it was as smooth as whipped cream with chocolate undertones and a very slight numbing, or cooling, sensation on the tongue. I wished that Rob was there. He always laughs when he eats a good Red Prawn.

Ian has around 80 trees, most of which are still too young to be in production. This year his trees produced about 1 ton of durian, which were bought by Vietnamese wholesalers in San Juan and whisked away never to be smelled again. There’s a demand for durian. And importantly, Ian estimates that within the next few years his trees will be producing around 10 tonnes of durian.

These durians were good. So if Puerto Rico is not quite the durian haven warranting a weekend vacation yet, it will be in the next 10 years, especially as the trees mature and the fruit develops those wonderful wrinkles, folds, and depth of flavor.

That said, I don’t think it will ever be the same as eating durian in Southeast Asia – with its hundreds of varieties, species, regional specialties, and rich cultural history. But I do think that Puerto Rico is definitely on the up and up in the durian world and that in the future, Puerto Rico will be a viable option for durian fans wanting a taste of something fresh without needing to travel across the world.

Puerto Rico Durian Resources

Tropical Agricultural Research Station (TARS)
Open Monday-Friday 7:00-4:00 PM
For more information call: 787-831-3435
Located on Route 2 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

Montoso Gardens
www.montosogardens.com

Tours by appointment only
Hwy 120 Km 18.9, Box 692, Maricao, Puerto Rico

Maruka Farms 
Tours by appointment only. Trees still immature.
Contact Juan at [email protected]

Panoramic Fruit Company
www.panoramicfruit.com