Kecapi or Santol Fruit, One of the Indonesian Fruit but Only Some People Know It

Santol or cotton fruit is a tropical fruit native to maritime Southest Asia. The santol is native to the Malesian floristic region but have been introduced to Indocina, Sri Lanka, India, and Indonesia. 

In Indonesia, this fruit grows only in certain town, such as in Jakarta and Bekasi West Java. We call it Kecapi. There are two varieties of Kecapi with two different species, the yellow variety and the green one. The difference is in the color that the older leaves turn before falling. 

The shape of Kecapi is small round and it has a soft skin like silk or cotton. The taste of the yellow variety is sweet if the fruit is ripe enough and sour if it is not ready to pick. But for the green variety, it is all sweet. We call that variety Kecapi Daon. Daon or Daun means leave. The color of the skin is just like its leave but the color of the fruit is white. 

Unfortunately, Kecapi is not too familiar in Indonesia because the fruit seller is not really interested to sell it. To eat the fruit is quite complicated unlike the other small fruits that can be eaten easily. It's because of the solid skin. Besides that, nowadays it is hard to find Kecapi. We can only find it in villages. Those are some of the reasons why. 

If you cannot imagine how the fruit Kecapi looks like, it's like Mangosteen but that fruit has softer texture and it has different skin color from Mangosteen. Like the other fruits, Kecapi also has so many vitamins for our body.