Perfumed fruits

Wrinkled purple skin gives away nothing. Crack one open and you get the most aromatic juice in the tropics — bright, tart, perfumed, with crunchy black seeds suspended in golden jelly. One spoon eaten straight, or drizzle the pulp over yogurt, ice cream, or a pavlova that needs the lift.

The rose-scented summer classic. A pink, knobbled shell cracks under a thumbnail to release translucent flesh around a polished mahogany seed. Sweet, floral, perfumed — the fresh fruit eats nothing like the tinned version most people grew up with. Eat cold, eat fast.

The queen of fruits, and she earns the title every time. A dense port-purple shell, snow-white segments arranged like garlic cloves, a flavour that sits between lychee, peach and perfumed sorbet. Banned fresh in the US for decades — eat one and you'll understand why people went to the trouble.

Eats like a crisp apple soaked in rosewater. Bell-shaped, glossy red-pink skin, hollow at the core, snap-crisp throughout. The flavour is light and floral rather than sugary — a palate cleanser between heavier tropical fruits, or a snack on a hot day with a pinch of salt.

Japan's largest premium strawberry — each berry the size of a small peach, individually graded, individually wrapped. Deeply sweet, low in acid, with a perfumed finish that tastes engineered, because it is. Selected from Miyazaki growers and flown in to land in punnets the same week.

The Japanese cultivar runs larger, pulpier and markedly sweeter than the South American passion fruit most people know. Less tart, more dessert — Kagoshima growers select for a balance that reads as gift-grade rather than market-stall. Same intoxicating perfume, half the acidity.

A hybrid of cherimoya and sugar-apple — knobbled green skin hides a snow-white pulp that scoops out like soft ice cream. Spoonable dessert before you've done anything to it. Yields like a ripe avocado when ready.

The Costa Rican mini-pineapple. Sweeter, lower-acid, edible core. The most fragrant pineapple on the bench — drinks like vanilla syrup, no tongue-burn from bromelain.

The largest tree fruit in the world — broken into golden pods of bubblegum-tropical sweetness. Eats chewy-firm, drinks like banana-mango-pineapple. The whole fruit can weigh 40kg; you'll buy it pre-portioned.

The rarer red-fleshed cultivar — reddish-orange pods instead of golden, smokier perfume, more complex than the standard yellow. A specialist's jackfruit.

Lychee's quieter cousin. Tan-brown shell, translucent grey-white flesh, single dark seed staring back like a dragon's eye. Less floral than lychee, more honey-musk, just as delicate.