Meet the imbondeiro.
Where our fruit comes from, nobody calls it a baobab. The tree is the imbondeiro. The fruit is múcua. Here is what it does that no orchard fruit can.
It stands for centuries, stores water in its trunk, and drops its fruit already dry.
Imbondeiro · dry season
One tree, three names
Imbondeiro is what the tree is called in the Portuguese spoken where our fruit grows, from the Kimbundu word mbondo. The fruit is múcua. English calls it baobab; botany calls it Adansonia digitata.
We print baobab on the label because that is the word you know. Under the tree, it has always been imbondeiro.
Three names, one tree.
It grows on the dry savanna of southern Africa, where most of the year it does not rain. It lives through the dry season on the water stored in its trunk, and it lives for centuries. Nobody waters it or feeds it, and nobody plants it. All of our fruit comes from wild trees.
We pick the fruit. The tree stays.
The fruit dries while it still hangs on the branch. By the time it falls, the shell is hard and the inside is a chalky, tart, powdery pulp with about 11% water left. That is why it keeps for years with nothing added, and why we can add the water back instead of taking it out.
Where the tree grows, nobody calls it a superfood. The pulp is chewed straight off the seeds. It is stirred into water for a tart drink, sometimes with sugar, sometimes with milk. It goes into ice cream and into a mousse. In the season, families sell it by the roadside. It is a snack before it is anything else.
Per 100 g of pulp: about 9.6 g of dietary fiber, about 380 mg of potassium, about 350 mg of total polyphenols, 0 mg of sodium. These are conservative values based on Eurofins finished-product analysis. The Shot is that pulp diluted with water; its own numbers are on its label.
Four steps.
- 01 · On the treeDries on its own
The fruit air-dries on the branch and drops when it is ready. No forcing, on the tree's schedule.
- 02 · Dry seasonCollected by hand
Collected by local communities from wild trees. Fruit taken, tree untouched.
- 03 · At originPulped with water
Shell cracked, seeds sifted away, the whole pulp mixed with water, pasteurized and sealed in aseptic bags. Nothing extracted, nothing concentrated.
- 04 · BottlingFilled in glass
Homogenized under pressure, pasteurized, filled in glass. Pulp and water: that is the entire ingredient list.
Múcua and water, nothing else. Tart, a little astringent, gone in one go.
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