Jᴀᴘᴀɴese bananas are the priciest in the world and can be eaten whole.

The most expensive banana in the world is grown in Jᴀᴘᴀɴ in the coldest prefecture, but how do they taste? As one of the most widely consumed fruits in Jᴀᴘᴀɴ, bananas aren’t uncommon in the sense that you can find them in any supermarket and pretty much any home. Bananas are quite uncommon in Jᴀᴘᴀɴ, nevertheless, as 99.98% of the bananas consumed there are imported. They have a strong flavor that isn’t overpowering because they weren’t grown with chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and they can even eat banana peels.

A banana that does not require peeling before consumption has been developed by a Jᴀᴘᴀɴese business. The edible skin of the Mongee banana is supposed to taste like a vegetable and have a texture similar to lettuce. For 68-year-old Setsuzo Tanaka of Okayama Prefecture, who has spent the last 40 years refining the ᴍᴇᴛʜod for cultivating them, it has been a labor of passion. His business, D&T Farm, refers to this process as “freeze-thaw awakening,” in which banana seedlings are frozen, then thᴀᴡᴇd and planted.

The procedure, according to D&T Farm, causes the plants to grow quickly, reducing the usual two-year cultivation period to six months. The bananas swiftly reach maturity, developing thin, pliable, and edible skins. The Gros Michel variety, which is likely what your grandparents or great grandparents consumed as children, formed the basis for Mongee bananas.

Because the company opposes genetic engineering and does not use chemicals to treat the Mongee banana plants, the skin can be safely consumed. The fruit itself has a current sugar content measurement of 25.8 grams per 100 grams, making it exceptionally sweet. Comparatively, the most popular commercial type of bananas today, the Cavendish, has roughly 18 grams of sugar per 100 grams.

Given that they are grown from seed and that there are only about 10 pieces of fruit available each week, the bananas are currently being sold at a Jᴀᴘᴀɴese department store for $7 each. The business intends to grow, initially in Jᴀᴘᴀɴ, where 99 percent of the country’s bananas are currently imported.