French Polynesia/Bora Bora: Tahitian Noni Fruits
Noni is the unusual tropical fruit that is common throughout the Pacific and Southeast Asia. While in many locales it’s used in cosmetics as lotion and soaps, in many of the Polynesian countries it’s eaten as a fruit or drunk in a juice form. It’s a bizarre looking fruit that goes from green to yellow and from hard to mushy. It’s not a staple food but rather last resort starvation fruit, while the juice is considered to be a potent tonic. Indeed, it contains a wide range of vitamins and chemicals, but none of it (in my humble opinion) sufficient to negate it’s rather bitter and unpleasant taste, texture, or lack of visual appeal. And yet this endemic fruit is everywhere in French Polynesia, and you can’t make a step without seeing it or stepping on it, even in Bora Bora.
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