Exotic Costa Rican Fruits

You can buy a mango, papaya, coconut, or pineapple all over the world. And maybe you can identify passion fruit, guava, and starfruit. But what about marañón (cashew apple), guanábana (soursop), pejibaye (palm fruit), mamón chino (rambutan), and cas (Costa Rican guava)?

These tropical fruits can be found at any feria (farmer’s market) in Costa Rica and many are sold along the sides of the street. Our students even find some of these fruits growing along the trails! Here’s some information on how to cut, eat, and prepare these exotic fruits.

Marañónes are the fruit of the cashew. The cashew is actually a seed that grows on top of the fruit. Marañón has a unique taste, both sweet and bitter, and it can dry out your mouth. It can be made into a juice, cooked, candied, or dried. To eat the cashew on top of the marañón, you must first roast it and then shell it. This labor intensive process is why cashews are so expensive. Carlos Castro (our Surf Coordinator) tells us that his friends would put the cashews in tins into bonfires in order to roast and eat them.

The edible part of the guanábana (soursop) is the sweet, white pulp. This is usually used for juice, and the taste is described as a combination of strawberry, pineapple, coconut, and banana.


Pejibaye is the fruit of a palm, and it is a protein-rich relative of the coconut. The fruit is boiled, then peeled and eaten alone or with mayonnaise. You can find stands that sell pejibayes all over Costa Rica, and supermarkets sell peeled and canned pejibayes. Crema de Pejibaye is a traditional Costa Rican soup.


Mamónes chinos are small fruits similar to the lychee. The peel is easily removed, and its white flesh has a tart, slightly grape taste. Mamónes chinos have a red, hairy exterior.


Cas is a wild fruit which is used mainly to make juice, due to its acidity. It is small and round, with a yellow skin. It is from the guava family and can be used for juice, jelly, and pie filling.

Mango, one of the more commonly known Costa Rican fruits, has a fun way of being cut. First, place the mango on its flat side on a cutting board and slice on the flat side, next to the seed. Repeat on the other side, you now have two mango sides and the seed. Cut a cross-hatch pattern through the mango pulp, down to the skin (but don’t cut through it). Now turn the half inside out. You can either cut the cubes off or eat it straight off the skin. *A lot of people have allergies to mango skin (due to chemicals similar to poison ivy), so avoid the skin to prevent a reaction.

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