Rambutan Season: Los Banos Mount Makiling the Capital of Rambutan Varieties

Posted On September 11, 2011

One benefit of our new vacation house at the foot of mount Makiling is that this September is the height of Rambutan Season!  My wife’s favorite fruit… and with her influence, our childrens’ favorite fruit.

In the old days we only knew of 2 kinds of Rambutan, the “tuklapin” and the “supsupin”. Now the sellers are more sophisticated.  They put up their signs and say the actual variety of what the rambutan is.

Yesterday we went to a farm at the side of mount Makiling that had rambutan trees.  Their rambutan variety was called Maharlika and another one they forgot what it was called.  It was great to pick ripe rambutan from the tree and eat it on the spot.  Of course organic.  Volcanic organic.  This Maharlika variety was not supsupin.  It was not exactly tuklapin either.  You could bite lightly and the flesh would give way and you can scrape the flesh off the seed with your teeth.  And the flavor was refreshingly tangy good.

The other variety of rambutan they had tasted sweet but different.

We took a tour up mount Makiling by car and  decided to taste a couple of fruits on the way down.  We came upon a rambutan variety named Sakay.  It tasted much like the Maharlika variety but the skin was thicker and the flesh was thicker.

We also came upon another rambutan variety called R.R.  It was tuklapin and tasted much different from the Maharlika and the Sakay.

What is out of favor with the buyers are the supsupins as those stuck bad to your teeth and you would need to floss your teeth afterwards.  But some people like that flavor.  Those usually are grown in the Candelaria area further south.

So we have kilos and kilos of rambutan.  What we found out from the rambutan farm is that the rambutan came with lots and lots and lots of red ants.  It takes quite an effort to remove the ants from the rambutan.  Rambutan comes with ants okay?  That’s natural and good for you.