Kiwi is of Chinese Origin...

I have always loved Kiwi and even more so now that I have come to know of its origin. With its brown velvety skin on the outside and sweet and juicy flesh inside, honestly who could ever resist it? Yes, I am talking about the kiwifruit which owes its origin to China until a clever marketing strategy in the 1950s changes its nationality ever since. This fruit had a long history in its original motherland before it was commercialized as kiwifruit, and therefore had many other older names such as Chinese gooseberry and Macaque peach or míhóu táo (獼猴桃) in Chinese.

Incidentally, I still think that I have also fallen into the same marketing ploy when I bought a pair of kiwi plants from the nursery. The plants was presented as a boy plant in a blue pot and girl plant in pink pot, packed together in a carry box with a delicious kiwi fruit-tart print. The nurseryman did not try to sell me more than one plant. It is all about the birds and the bees, that you must plant a male and a female plant in order to produce fruits. It is dioecious by nature, which refers to a plant population having separate male and female plants.

I have told myself not to add another plant in my overcrowded backyard but I have prepared the bed next to the pergola to accommodate my newly purchased kiwifruit plants. How can you not find room for a long lost cousin?