Mao Shan Wang or Musang King is no doubt the king of durians in many people's hearts but Jin Feng 金凤, a very different durian, is often spoken of in the same breath and is even in the same price bracket. Jin Feng 金凤 fans swear by their durian like football fans' fierce loyalty to their favourite clubs.
Most Jin Feng are shaped like a roundish rugby ball, slightly elongated while some are more rounded. The husk is olive green in colour. The spiky thorns are dense and conical in shape. The fruit is not large, most are just slightly over 1 kilo. Jin Feng come from plantations in Pahang and Johor.
The name Jin Feng comes from the husband 金 and wife 凤 who registered the cultivar as 金凤, combining both their names.
The husk is relatively thin and the meat is snugly packed inside the fruit. The meat is light yellowish in colour like diluted condensed milk.
The meat is soft and quite moist, nearly wet.
Fragrance is gently sweetish (not pungent like Mao Shan Wang).
The meat tasted mainly sweet with a slight underlying bitterness.
Jin Feng's sweetness has a more delicate feel compared to the rather punchy assertive sweetness of Mao Shan Wang. Jin Feng has a refreshing fruity, layered kind of sweetness whereas average grade Mao Shan Wang's sweetness is relatively uniform and flat like candy. Perhaps, that is why Jin Feng is holding it's own despite the overwhelming popularity of MSW. Personally, I feel MSW can get boring because its taste is rather predictable. (But, I know many people love MSW precisely for its consistency.)
Jin Feng seeds are surprisingly small. Some just the size of the nail of my pinkie. So, even though Jin Feng is not a large durian, there is plenty of meat in each fruit.
This year, I got my Jin Feng in Johor Bahru from AnA Fruit Trading for RM30 per kilo. (Prices change daily.)
AnA Fruit Trading's 5 acre durian plantation is in Yong Peng and they sell their durians in JB at Atarah Hair Design at 94, Jalan Cantik 1, Taman Pelangi Indah in Ulu Tiram (the plantation owner's daughter's shop).
I like AnA Fruit Trading because they use no synthetic fertilisers or pesticides at their plantation in Yong Peng. Only organic substances are used - the durian trees are fertilised with (bycatch) fish and swallow poo collected from bird nest houses. A natural insecticide, wood vinegar, is used to protect the trees.
Best part is AnA Fruit Trading does not charge a premium for their synthetic chemical free durians. In fact, their prices are slightly lower because the durians are direct from plantation to retail with no middlemen. The dropped durians are collected at day break and trucked straight to Atarah Hair Design, arriving at around 2pm. So, the durian are always fresh.
Shop name: AnA Fruit Trading (inside Atarah Hair Studio)
Address: 94, Jalan Cantik 1, Taman Pelangi Indah, Ulu Tiram, Johor (10 minutes drive from IKEA/ JUSCO Tebrau or 3 minutes drive from Mydin Pelangi Indah)
GPS: 1°34'43.0"N 103°48'06.5"E | 1.578606, 103.801811
Waze: Atarah Hair Studio
Tel: +6016 739 3816 (pre-booking is a must for MSW due to demand)
Hours: Durians arrive around 2:00pm
Date visited: 10 July 2018
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MSW is king and 金凤 is Queen
ReplyDeleteSince when did Jinfeng come out? Since Najib sold durian to Xi Jinping?
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