Atemoya

The Atemoya, Annona × Atemoya, is a hybrid of two fruits – the sugar-apple (Annona squamosa) and the cherimoya (A. cherimola) – which are both native to the American tropics. This fruit is popular in Taiwan, where it is known as the "pineapple sugar apple”

An atemoya is normally heart-shaped or rounded, with pale-green, easily bruised, bumpy skin. Near the stem, the skin is bumpy as it is in the sugar-apple, but become smoother like the cherimoya on the bottom. The flesh is not segmented like that of the sugar-apple, bearing more similarity to that of the cherimoya.

Taste and Texture
The atemoya is very juicy and smooth, tasting slightly sweet and a little tart, reminiscent of a piña colada. The taste also resembles vanilla from its sugar-apple parent. The black seeds found throughout the flesh of the atemoya are inedible. When ripe, the fruit can be scooped out of the shell and eaten chilled.

Purchasing Principles
Choose atemoya when the skin of the fruit turns from green to lighter green-yellow. In addition, the bumps on the skin of the atemoya fruit (the areoles) tend to flatten out when the fruit is ready to pick.

Health Benefits of Atemoya
Potential for weight control, more energy for exercising, reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases, reduced risk of developing cancers, lower blood pressure, potential to lower cholesterol, reduced change of developing type 2 diabetes, potential to slow down age process.

Did you know...
The first cross was made in 1908 by P.J. Wester, a horticulturist at the USDA’s Subtropical Laboratory in Miami. The resulting fruits were of superior quality to the sugar-apple and were given the name "atemoya", a combination of ate, an old Mexican name for sugar-apple, and "moya" from cherimoya.