Depending on the sugar content and the variety, some dragon fruit may taste like golden kiwi while others can remind you of a straight-up spoon of honey.
When you bite into it, you'll feel the crunchiness of the seeds and a refreshing cool tropical flavor. The flesh and its fiber breaks off very easily with every bite. Dragon fruits are better served chilled. It's an 'easy' fruit to eat for kids and adults with its not-so-strong but mild scent.
Let's explore what the different types taste like.
The Taste of Different Dragon Fruit Varieties
#1. Sugar Dragon S8: Like Berries
Sugar Dragon S8, developed by the grand master Paul Thomson, is a petite little guy in the dragon fruit family. But it packs a ton of flavor.
It is a red skin, red flesh dragon fruit that's just a bit bigger than the size of an Easter egg. This guy is sooo sooo sweet.
Its skin is very thin and easy to peel off. It's also juicy and has crunchy big seeds like the Palora. The taste is similar to berries.
#2. Physical Graffiti: Like Kiwis or Grapes
Physical Graffiti has bigger fruits than Sugar Dragon. The inside flesh shows a beautiful fuse of pink and white. Some has a deep dark red blood-like color.
Regarding taste, Physical Graffiti is not as sweet as the S8 we've seen above. It has this perfect balance between sweetness and tartness which many people love. It's not over-powering, not too sweet either. Some describe Physical Graffiti as tasting like golden kiwis.
#3. Delight: Like Melon
Delight looks like a regular dragon fruit. The fruits can be very big and up to 1.5 lbs (680 grams).
Like White Sapphire, the inside of Delight is light pale pink. If you leave it to ripen more, it will get more pink inside.
Delight tastes like a melon with that rindy crisp flavor. It's refreshing and a little bit tangy. You may also get a tiny bit of saltiness in it.
#4. Vietnam White: Like Kiwi
Vietnam White is the most common of all dragon fruit varieties. It's the one you usually see at the grocery stores. To some people, it tastes bland.
If you chill it before eating, you can really get that refreshing cool taste. The fibers of the fruit break off very easily; it's easy to bite off and chew (it's not way too firm).
If you really like to kick it up a notch, let it ripen a bit more until the skin turn softer and more wrinkled. It tastes so good when the inside has some clear jelly-like part. That's the sweetest for sure!
#5. Ecuador Palora: Like Sugar Cube or Honey
To some people, the Palora is 'ughhh' because it's just way too sweet. It leaves that after-taste in your mouth that you just want to have a gulp of water afterwards. But to some people, this tastes just like heaven.
It is the sweetest of all dragon fruit varieties. With a Brix sweetness score of over 20 in most cases. You could if you'd like learn about the Brix scale and how to measure the sweetness of dragon fruits here later if you'd like: https://zenyrgarden.com/how-to-test-the-sweetness-of-dragon-fruits/
The fruit of Ecuador Palora however can be quite small. Because it has thick skin, there's not a lot of flesh relative to the skin. Its seeds are big like the Sugar Dragon. And Palora tastes like honey.
#6. Red Laverne: Like a Grape-Flavored Watermelon
Red Laverne has this hot neon pink color on the inside with tons and tons of seeds. It has quite large fruits with less thick skin than the Delight.
Red Laverne has that grape vibe to it with a hint of watermelon taste.
The question that many folks often ask is:
Is Red Dragon Fruit Sweeter Than White?
Generally, the red dragon fruit is sweeter than the white variety. The sugar content of the red type is usually higher and it has more anti-oxidants in it.
One exception to this may be the white-flesh Ecuador Palora. This one is hands-down the sweetest of all sweet dragon fruits, even more so than the red ones. Its BRIX (sugar score) is around 23 while others hover around 15.
Exploring More Dragon Fruit Flavors
If you'd like to explore more about the different flavors of dragon fruits, I would recommend Kim Phan YouTube channel.
She does many dragon fruit taste test videos on different varieties in her backyard. It's fun to see the cracking open of the dragon fruits and the reactions to how they taste. Hope you'll enjoy.
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