What Does Rambutan Taste Like & How To Eat This Fruit – Detailed Variety Tables

To make sure you understand the correct taste of Rambutan, you will need to know what variety you have, as there are numerous varieties. According to Whitehead^[1] and his extensive studies, there were 144 varieties in a pre-World War II collection that was lost. Today, there are 11 important varieties, which we will discuss the taste of and description of each one and a few more, but these are only a few of the many available. First, we will give you a general taste then go into more depth with each individual variety.

Rambutan tastes sweet. The taste can range from very sweet as in the Lengkeng and Maharlika varieties to subacid and acidic (sour) as in the case of Tau Po Cheng and Bara varieties. Most Rambutan varieties have a juicy, firm, white grapelike texture.

When you read that Rambutan has a grape taste then this is only one variety. For example, the Maharlika variety common in the Philippines has a very sweet taste. Whereas it has been noted that some varieties are so acidic such as the Bara variety that they are sour.

There are two different coloured skins of Rambutan varieties. There are yellow skin and red or crimson skin varieties. See Figure 1 below for the different rind colours available resulting in different tastes.

To help you understand the variety of tastes and appearance of Rambutan we have put together tables below of the main varieties with there tastes and characteristics.^{[2] [3]}

If you are wanting to keep your Rambutan fresh longer than a few days, as Rambutan tends to spoil very quickly due to the sugars, then please read our article: Can You Freeze or Do You Refrigerate Rambutan?

Table 1.^[2]—Important Rambutan varieties along with their sources and individual characteristics (Please note: Aril is the flesh around the seed)

Unfortunately, there are so many other varieties of Rambutan due to the same common name being used for several varieties or the same variety of Rambutan being known by a few different names.

Table 2.^[3] – Other more common names of Rambutan along with there taste and characteristics.

How To Eat Rambutan

After making a cut into the skin with your fingernail (if you find it too hard use a knife to make a small incision), use your fingers to pull apart the skin.

This will expose one half of the fruit as one half sits in the remaining skin. Simply squeeze the skin that has the Rambutan sitting in it, and the fruit should slide out. Be careful to have something to catch the fruit as it is slippery and can easily fly out due to the juiciness.

Once out you can either cut into the fruit and remove the seed, then place the fruit into your mouth and eat, or just place the fruit and seed into your mouth, being careful not to eat or swallow the seed.

If you are interested in finding out if the seed is edible and how to safely prepare them then please check out our article: Are Rambutan Seeds Edible?

Just spit out the seed when you have eaten all of the flesh from around it.

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