Umbu

Get to know it

Umbu is a small green-to-yellow fruit from Brazil's dry northeast, with juicy flesh that is sweet, tart and fragrant when ripe. Its tree keeps a water reserve underground: swollen roots store water through the dry season.

What it is

Umbu, Spondias tuberosa, belongs to the cashew family. Its rounded or oval fruit measures 2–5 cm (0.8–2 in) across, with smooth skin and soft flesh around a large dark stone.

Fruit for market can be picked at the inchado stage: still green, but just starting to change colour. It continues to ripen after picking, becoming yellow and soft.

Where it comes from

Umbu belongs to the Caatinga, the dry scrub country of northeastern Brazil's Sertão. Much of the crop is gathered from wild trees, providing income for small farmers and cooperatives.

In Bahia, families from Canudos, Uauá and Curaçá supply native fruit to the Coopercuc cooperative in Uauá. There, Caatinga fruit such as umbu becomes sweets, jam, compote and beer, giving the harvest several forms beyond fresh fruit.

How it's eaten where it grows

In Bahia's Sertão, umbuzada is milk soured by umbu: goat's or cow's milk, curdled by the acidity of the pulp and sweetened with rapadura sugar. It is eaten with farinha.

Mousse de umbu makes a cool, creamy dessert. Whole fruit is cooked with its skin, then strained to remove the stones. The pulp is blended with condensed milk and cream and chilled; the finished mousse is pale green. Both preparations put the tart fruit alongside milk.

How it's grown

The umbu tree sheds its leaves during the dry season and stores water in swollen roots. A wild tree takes about ten years to start producing fruit, then bears once a year.

Gatherers pick the fruit gently by hand and put it in baskets or bags, because it bruises easily. The mostly green inchado stage gives fruit time to finish ripening after harvest.

When and where you'll find it

In Sergipe's dry interior, umbu is usually harvested from January through March and reaches open-air markets and supermarkets as fresh fruit. Fresh sales are concentrated near where the trees grow; prepared products travel to other parts of Brazil.

Brazil's Central do Cerrado cooperative shop lists umbu jam and fruit bars online. The bars come as plain umbu or blended with guava or banana.

Sources · 8

Get it near Detroit

What it tastes like

As tart as a grapefruit, crisper than a blueberry≈

Not sweetlemonbananaSweet

MildbananaapplelemonSour

SoftbananaappleCrisp

More about the taste

Ripe umbu pulp is soft, succulent and sweet. Harvesting too early limits sugar and aroma development, while a later harvest shortens how long the fruit keeps.

Umbu varies substantially in size, color and chemistry from tree to tree.

Choose, ripen, store, eat

1ChooseFor the market, umbu is often picked at the inchado stage: mostly green, just starting to change color
For the market, umbu is often picked at the inchado stage: mostly green, just starting to change color. This suits shipping more than peak eating quality.
2RipenRipens after picking
Ripens after picking
Umbu continues ripening after harvest: fruit picked at the inchado stage will progress to yellow and become fully edible.
3StoreCool, umbu
1. CoolUmbuAround 12°C
Store umbu around 12°C; below about 11°C it can suffer chilling injury.
4EatPulp · not skin, stone
Eat
Pulp
Not eaten
SkinStone
For umbuzada, remove the skin and stone from ripe umbu, then mix the pulp with milk and sugar.

More tips

Worth knowing

Colder storage isn't always better for umbu.
For umbu, harvest readiness and being ready to eat are different stages. Ask about picking maturity and intended use rather than judging all green fruit alike.

Detroit, Michigan

When it’s good here

Grown here

Ships from other states

2 growing areas, 1 country

Bahia
Pernambuco
You

Grows hereOther monthsYou

0 of 1 areas · October

In one Pernambuco community, people choose which umbu to gather first by sweet-sour taste, then by size and pulp quantity. Useful trees are kept standing on managed land.
One rural community in Pernambuco, Brazil

11 names in 6 languages

Imburoot

Cook it

Recipes 4

2 umbu festivals

Festival do Umbu UauáFeb–MarUauá, Bahia, BrazilFeb–Mar

Festival do Umbu Dona InêsMar–AprDona Inês, Paraíba, BrazilMar–Apr

Festivals this month →

Strange but true

If you like Umbu

Tastes alike

Close relatives

Same plant family

Marula

Sources

Umbu · Fruitopia · checked Oct 2, 2026