By The Author of

The Simple Divine Truth Books

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Published on July 10, 2011
Revised Nov 06, 2015

Tamarind Tree & Fruit

Ball type Tamarind tree fruit is less
common to any other kind. They are
dark
greenish
colored
until
it
becomes ripe. The one in the picture
is fully ripe having golden yellow
color, a perfect specimen of a typical
ripe fruit.
These fruits have very little pest
problem and doesnt need any
chemicals to protect it. I havent seen
any birds or any other insects, which
eats away the fruit. The size of a
fairly large one could be 4 inches
high and 3.5 to 4 inches diameter
and weighs 250-300 Grams when it is
fresh.

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It seems they are very much safe in its life span. The ripe ones falls down
like Newtons apple and the rest remain. The ripe fruit is the best crop.
The other ones having greenish color is more of bitter taste to soft sour
taste.
These kind of tamarind are widely used by Kerala State people in India for
making Fish-Curry; without tamarind, fish curry is simply hopeless, they
say.

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This fruit is grown in plenty and the harvest becomes due in June-July
when it is raining heavily in (Monsoon time) in Kerala State. If it is a ripe
fruit, if you press between the head and the tail of the fruit, it will split
open like a Pea-nut shell.
The inside seeds are immersed in jelly like flesh. It is very tasty to
consume, discard the seed just like you do with dates. These seeds can
produce new trees that may take 10 12 years time to bear the fruit.
Trees are also grafted and its fruit bearing period can be cut down to 3
4 years. Seeds are not used for any purposes to my knowledge. I used to
consume a lot of such fruits, during its season but it never gave me any
stomach complaints; to some people, things are not so pleasant.

During harvest, they shake down the branches; even the green fruits are
pulled down along with the ripe ones. They are split in to two and then the
inside seeds are separated. The fruit shell is kept for drying in the hot sun
for about a week. During monsoon time when the sun is seldom seen,
artificial heating does the drying.

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Tamarind dried in the sun gives excellent taste, compared to fruits dried
under smoke and fire. Scientific methods are not used for drying. One
reason is it is not economic, the other reason is, there are no large-scale
producers.
Trees are grown here and there and the landowners rarely have more
than one or two Tamarind trees. Drying the fruit in large scale is the
biggest problem.
The cleaned up tamarind fruits
are dried through a long process.
When it is perfectly dried it
behaves like seashell, just hard as
that. For preservation; the dried
tamarind is mixed with common
salt and also with some cooking
oil to prevent forming of any
fungus. This preserved tamarind
should be exposed to sun heat or
sun, once in a while, and in this
way it can be preserved for
several
years.
Fully
dried
tamarind will become jet black
naturally and it will look like dried
shrimp, shrunk altogether. The
weight loss from the raw fruit to
dried ones is immense.
On the left is a tree trunk of a
twenty five year old tamarind tree
in my backyard. Its circumference
is 54 inches, (137 Centimeters)
I do not think the tree trunk have
any timber value at all. The fallen down dry branches disintegrates in few
days, I assume the main trunk also can be of same characteristics.
To my knowledge these trees draw a lot of water for survival. They are
very commonly seen on the shore of backwaters and canals. The
propagation may be through the running water.
Very few leaves are shed from the trees near the canals, in summer;
where as you can expect heavy fall of leaves from the trees in other dry
areas. These trees are capable of withstanding heavy summer by
shedding the leaves even from lowermost branches. I have not seen a dry
tamarind tree anywhere, due to shortage of water.

Continued >

You can see the leaves are closely knit together leaving no sunlight to the
bottom. Each branch could stretch up to 25 to 30 feet, as a result a wellgrown tree might cover 50 to 60 feet radius.
One peculiarity is, nothing will grow beneath this tree, not even grass. The
water falling down through the tamarind leaves might contain some acid,
which would prevent the growth of any other plants.

Continued

Tree branches spread out uniformly, like an umbrella skeleton. This

particular tree in the picture is, more than fifty feet high and still growing
continuously.

The leaves are of dark green in color and very thick. The nerve systems
of the leaves are not at all seen on the front side, but little on the rear as
seen in the picture. They dont have any special attractive beauty but you
will never fail to recognize it as a leaf.
If you bite on the tamarind leaf, you can feel the same taste of the
tamarind fruit itself in a mild form. Each leaf could be 4 to 4 inches long
and 2 to 2 inches wide. In summer the leaves size could be smaller and
during rainy season it could be larger.
To my knowledge there are four kinds of tamarind, I am familiar with. The
above type is the best among all the four. Even constant use of it never
gives any stomach complaint; rather it refreshes the stomach condition. It
looks like, as if there is some medicinal value in this kind of tamarind.
I began to see this Base-ball type tamarind from my early childhood until
now. I just love to see a perfect ripe fruit for its magnificent golden yellow
color and the marvelous taste of the jell-like-portion inside. I do not think,
there is any other fruit having identical striped grooves shape. Among
many others, the Creator has done His marvelous handy work in this also.

Above is a dry branch of a tamarind tree, which makes a very poor

firewood. It disintegrates after few days.

==============================================

Second kind of Tamarind

widely cultivated in India and

other countries are explained in:-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarind <

> http://www.dawn.com/2007/07/09/ebr5.htm <
They are the biggest tamarind trees and grow up to a hundred feet easily.
Their timber may be one of the most heavy and hardest with the most
beautiful grains. It is so tough to work on its timbers. Carpenters work on
it when it is fresh otherwise the chisel will slip off or even break. It weighs
nearly 55 Lbs / cubic foot; you can imagine how heavy it is!! Even
termites will flee from this timber.
Pyinkado wood (Iron wood) weighs 70 to 80 Lbs / Cubic foot may be the
heaviest wood / cubic foot.
This type of Tamarind wood is used for different kinds of wooden
hammers used by Indian carpenters.

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Tamarind Seeds are crushed and boiled and given to ox, as feed. (Ox=An
adult castrated bull used to pull carts in India).

Branches are not very much straight but takes irregular shape.

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Foliages are closely knit

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Most of the seeds are more or less square with corners round off. They
are 0.5 inch long, 0.4 -0.5 inch wide and up to 0.2 inch thick. The offwhite seed itself is very hard so as its maroon colored outer shell; the
whole seed weighs one gram or so.
Typical leaves structure of this tamarind. Leaves are
small and thick.

==========================================

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The Third Kind Tamarind

On this third variety Tamarind the fruit
grows mainly on the stem in an irregular
pattern. You can see in the picture shown
on the left side. A number of pictures of
the same tree are shown, to have a
better idea of this kind of tamarind.
This tree is very fragile. If you hold any
branch and put little pressure, it will
break apart easily.
Its leaves are extremely thin; even then it
survives in the hot sun

The above picture is fairly grown

tamarind. It could be double of this size.
If you dont make use of it when it is fully
grown, it will start decaying and fall
apart. People like this type of tamarind
and make use of it at an early stage.
Fully-grown tamarinds sour taste is
severe and tongue piercing. These are
used for curries and pickles.
Tender ones are the best for pickle
because it doesnt have the severances of
sour-taste.
Just after the rainy season the fruit is
grown abundantly and lasts through the
summer. When the first set of fruits are
fully grown the next set will sprout.

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This process will continue until the end of the season. This fruit doesnt
have a solid flesh. If you just press one of the fruits, it will become paper
thin.

Continued

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The Fourth Kind Tamarind

I am hunting for the fourth kind and I havent found a tree to take some
more pictures. Once I had this tree in my parental home.

Seeds grow very seldom. Normally propagation is through seed, unless

tissue culture is applied.
Its botanical name is OTAHEITE GOOSEBERRY I think.
Good for pickle and curries. This kind of tamarind may be used for other
tamarind products. The tree and laves are identical to the one in the
above picture of the third kind, but fruits are round and small about o.75
inches diameter and not more than that. It tastes exactly like the third
kind tamarind. It has one solid s

Published on July 10, 2011

Revised Nov 06, 2015