Dongxing Wampee

Dongxing Wampee

　　Jiangping Town is the main production area of wampee, and Jianglong Brigade within the town has the largest planting area, with nearly every household growing the fruit—ranging from just one or two trees to dozens. July and August each year mark the wampee harvest season, when golden-yellow fruits hang abundantly on the branches, making your mouth water even before you take a bite...

　　Wampee, also called “yellow peel,” “yellow loquat,” “yellow bullet,” or “king’s fruit.” The fruit is golden in color, glossy and eye-catching. Based on taste, it can be divided into sweet and sour varieties. Some types are pleasantly sweet and tangy, juicy, and aromatic—making it a fruit that excels in color, fragrance, and taste, comparable to lychee. Its leaves, root bark, and seeds are all used medicinally. A local saying goes: “Eat lychee when hungry, eat wampee when full,” which illustrates how wampee aids digestion.

　　"The appearance of wampee plants, as well as the size and color of the fruit, closely resemble those of longan. However, the flower structure is vastly different because wampee is actually a cousin of oranges and grapefruits, sharing no genetic relation to longan at all. It is an evergreen small tree or large shrub of the Rutaceae family, with pinnate compound leaves. In spring, it produces abundant small white flowers in a conical inflorescence, though the blossoms are tiny and not particularly fragrant.

　　Wampee is native to tropical regions such as Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It thrives in hot and humid climates, making southern Taiwan highly suitable for cultivation, with some limited farming taking place in Taitung. The flowering period is from March to April, and fruits begin to form soon after the flowers fade. Initially, the young fruits are oval-shaped and dark green, gradually growing rounder and turning yellow as they mature. Wampee fruits are typical berries, with translucent, juicy, and pulpy flesh rich in vitamins. Though they look similar to longan, their taste is somewhat reminiscent of grapefruit—sweet with a tangy twist—a very likable fruit." Jiangping Town in our city is abundant in this fruit.

　　[Flavor & Properties] Sweet, sour, warm, slightly bitter, and pungent. Rich in vitamin C, sugar, organic acids, and pectin; the peel and leaves contain volatile oils, while the leaves also have phenols, flavonoid glycosides, and amino acids; the bark contains various alkaloids such as berberine, palmatine, and magnoflorine, as well as sterols, mucilage, and phenolic compounds. The fruit helps with digestion and phlegm relief, regulates qi, and is used to treat indigestion, chest and diaphragm fullness, pain, coughs, wheezing due to phlegm, and to relieve depression-related heat and hernia pain. The leaves, with their cool and pungent nature, help dispel wind, clear the surface, eliminate phlegm, and regulate qi. They are used to prevent and treat influenza, fever due to warm diseases, coughs, asthma, abdominal pain due to water retention, malaria, difficulty urinating, and heat-toxin related scabies. The roots can treat qi-related pain and hernia pain.