Kiwi

dropdown It is one of the ugliest little fruits in the world. Many people don’t know how to eat it and have never tried it. This fruit, however, is a multi-billion-dollar super food, a food that is very nutritious. This fruit’s skin is brown and looks like the fur of a monkey. dropdown One of the fruit’s original names, which means “monkey peach” in Chinese. The Chinese first grew it in the Chang Kiang Valley about 700 years ago. It became a favourite food of the rulers. They liked the bright green colour on the inside of the fruit and its sweet taste. When people from other parts of the world began traveling in China, they discovered this unusual-looking fruit. In 1904, a woman from New Zealand, Isabel Fraser, travelled to China. There, she ate a monkey peach. She liked its taste, so she took some seeds back with her to New Zealand. She gave the seeds to Thomas Allison. He planted Fraser’s seeds and harvested the first fruit in 1910. dropdown The climate of New Zealand was perfect for the monkey peach, and soon the fruit became popular there. However, New Zealanders had trouble pronouncing the name in Chinese. They decided to call it a “Chinese gooseberry” because the fruit is green, like a gooseberry. dropdown By the 1950s, New Zealand had more Chinese gooseberries than they could eat. Fruit growers wanted to expand their markets to other countries. However, they had a problem. Some countries had an import tax on berries. To avoid the tax, the growers decided to change its name into “kiwi’.