Lychee season

After a year of failure, my mother called to say that the lychee tree in our garden had unexpectedly bloomed early this year. By now, the fruit was heavy on the branches. The bright red lychee clusters stood out among the lush green foliage, bringing with them a sense of joy: this year, we would have homegrown lychees to eat.

Every year, around the end of May and the beginning of June, not only famous lychee growing regions such as Bac Giang , Hung Yen, and Hai Duong enter the lychee season, but also the entire northern countryside is bustling with the colors of lychees. This year's lychee crop is good, blooming early. When the fruit skin has begun to turn red, it only needs a few more sunny days to be plump and ready to harvest. There are trees with green fruit, but after only a few days of hot sun, they have grown visibly.

The lychee trees in the home garden, although not as sweet and big as the lychees grown in specialized fields, each fruit brings joy and excitement because of the "homegrown" mentality, and is completely clean because there are no fertilizers or pesticides. The first fruits of the season are carefully selected to offer to ancestors. The remaining are divided into bunches to give to relatives and neighbors, so everyone gets a share.

The family that ripened first would invite the first, the family that ripened later would give them back, and then everyone would compare which tree was sweeter and which fruit was bigger. The best thing was the atmosphere of lychee picking day: people climbed the tree, people helped pick leaves and branches from the tree, and they chatted animatedly while working, even though their backs were soaked with sweat.

Families with children living far away always set aside a few branches from the tree. Sometimes parents trim them neatly, pack them in cardboard boxes, and send them by bus thousands of kilometers from North to South.

Eating homegrown lychee in the middle of the city, why does it taste so different - even though the fruit is smaller, the skin is rougher, but it is sweet and strangely refreshing. Perhaps because it is not just a fruit, but also a gift from the countryside filled with love, a childhood memory, a piece of the countryside soul in the hearts of those who live far away from home.

These days, the streets of the South are also flooded with the color of lychees. From traditional markets, supermarkets to street vendors, everywhere you see lychees bundled in bright red bunches. Vendors are constantly spraying water to keep the fruit fresher under the harsh Southern sun.

After the batches of pink lychees grown in the Central Highlands, lychees from Bac Giang, Hung Yen, and Hai Duong have also begun to be shipped to Ho Chi Minh City by truck. Gourmets are still patiently waiting for the lychees: thin skin, thick, dry flesh, small seeds, and a sharp, but not too strong, sweetness.

In addition to being eaten fresh, in the South, lychee is also transformed into many cool desserts: lychee tea, lychee yogurt, lychee shaved ice, lychee wrapped in lotus seeds, soaked lychee... Each dish has a gentle, pleasant flavor, very suitable for the Southern summer sun.

Each year, lychee only has one season, a short time, only a few months. But that sweet fruit not only brings sweetness to the tip of the tongue, but also the aftertaste of family love, of homeland. A bountiful lychee season, joy also lingers, like the scent of lychee spreading in the wind, touching the tip of the tongue and anchoring for a long time in the heart.

HAI DUY

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/mua-vai-post799531.html