Passion Fruit in Peru

Coming to Peru, I really had no idea what to expect. What would it look like? What would the people be like? Friendly like the Midwesterners I was so familiar with? So many things were a complete surprise. However, one of the things I was most surprised by was the popularity of passionfruit. Since the U.S. barely has any passionfruit at all, much less any authentic passionfruit, I had never tried it. But at every single restaurant we went to in those three weeks, there was some sort of passionfruit offered. Juice, soda, ice cream, dessert, there was passionfruit everywhere I turned. On my first day in Peru, only hours after arriving in Cusco, I tried a sip of passion fruit juice from a friend and immediately fell in love with it. I spent the next few weeks trying all the passionfruit I could find, but it made me wonder, why doesn’t the U.S. have passionfruit? After all, even the fake passion fruit tea at Starbucks is incredibly popular. Wouldn’t real passionfruit sell so well here? Apparently, passion fruit is difficult to import to the U.S. and because of that it is extremely expensive and harder to find, making it much less popular. On the other hand, Peru is the world's leading exporter of passion fruit, making it both inexpensive, readily available, and popular. Leaving Peru, I know I will sorely miss passion fruit. Even on my last night, I made sure to have a nice passion fruit juice, knowing it was unlikely I could find one in the U.S.. I hope one day passion fruit catches on here so I can enjoy a nice glass of passion fruit juice in my kitchen each morning.