Dried Longan
About
The Longan tree can grow up to 12 metres in height, and the plant is very sensitive to frost. Longan trees require sandy soil and temperatures that do not typically go below 4.5 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit). Longans and lychees bear fruit at around the same time of the year. The longan ("dragon eyes") is so named because of the fruit's resemblance to an eyeball when it is shelled (the black seed shows through the translucent flesh like a pupil/iris). The seed is small, round and hard. To express longan fruit, there is a Vietnamese riddle: Da cóc mà bọc bột lọc, bột lọc mà bọc hòn than (literally: Toad's skin covers tapioca flour, tapioca flour covers coal stone): toad's skin is the ugly skin, tapioca flour is the clear white flesh and coal stone is the black seed.
