Beat the summer heat by staying in the shade as often as you can, or in other words, venture out only when necessary. Turn on the A/C or electric fan to cool indoor spaces, or use the humble pamaypay to move the hot air around you if that helps.
Then there’s imagining or actually biting into the many delicious summer fruits that our country is blessed with, which is such a refreshing thing to do. It’s this last thought that made me want to write about our summer fruits and the color inspiration they bring. Here are eight fruits and their color combinations, all of which would look wonderful in your home.
Creamy Caimito
Bite into the velvety, pulpy, jelly-like texture of this sweet fruit. Its creamy goodness is best served cold. When you cut the fruit crosswise, you will see the star pattern of the seeds. Pop the seeds into your mouth too and roll them about your tongue to coax the fleshy bits off. The seeds are elliptic-shaped, dark brown or black in color, glossy, and hard. They can be planted and will germinate in about 4 weeks. Wait another 5 to 7 years for the plant to bear fruit.
Colors: Caimito can be a beautiful green or deep purple or both. It has a stunning color palette of deep purple and light green. There’s nothing shy or timid about this color combination. It’s for the divas who love to make a statement with their presence and who insist that their homes do the same.
Atis So Sweet
Also known as custard apple, sugar apple is as its name implies so sweet. The flesh is soft, milky, and creamy and as its other name implies, custard-like. The fruit is composed of loose segments which give the distinctive rounded protuberances on the outside.
If caimito has about 6 to 10 seeds, the sugar apple has about 20 to 30 elliptic seeds that are dark brown to black in color, hard, and shiny. The sugar apple plant takes about 4 years to start bearing fruit when grown from seed.
What’s interesting about this plant is that it is used in folk remedies worldwide, with its leaves, bark, roots, and unripe fruit have medicinal properties.
Colors: This lovely light green and cream combination is refreshing and welcoming. The color combo’s versatility makes it a good choice for any room in the house, both in interiors and exteriors. If you’ve been following out blog for a while now, you’d notice that we love green because although it’s considered a cool color. it gives warmth to a space, depending on its tones.
If you want to explore other green hues, check out the four we have for Boysen Color Trend 2024-2025.
Santol Haul
If it’s santol, I want a haul. I can’t be satisfied with 1 or 2 in one sitting, maybe 10. It’s called cotton fruit in English, which makes sense because the pulp really looks like cotton when you cut the fruit open. Its taste ranges from sweet to tart. If it’s tart, just add salt IMHO. Some say that it has floral notes with a hint of peach, apple, and citrus flavors. I’m really not quite sure. All I know is that I love to work the seed in my mouth until the pulp is gone and safe in my tummy.
Full disclosure: I don’t like to eat the santol rind. It’s too tart. But thank God, it can be cooked into ginataang santol. Really yummy recipe that’s best eaten with rice.
Colors: Bring that sunshine into your home with this cheerful color combination of orange and cream. Use terracotta pots or clay accessories to bring out the warmth even more. Keep it restful by adding another color sparingly. It’s best to limit the palette to just brown tones.
Sige Sige Sineguelas
A big yes to sineguelas even if it is difficult to find really good ones here in the city. I like those with thin skins, thick pulps, preferably ripe, sweet, and juicy, and relatively small seed. The taste is a mix of sweet and sour, sweeter when its ripe. If it’s not, just sprinkle salt over a bowl of sineguelas, give it a shake, then start biting into the crunchy flesh.
Colors: We’ve chosen the reddish brown color combined with the paler yellow found under the skin. We could have chosen the bright red and yellow tones but thought better of it, seeing that it’s summer and we do not want to feel overwhelmed with intense colors at home. We’d rather have the subdued terracotta walls and touches of yellow for a rustic vibe.
Duhat Delight
Compared to memories from my teenage years, it’s getting more difficult to find duhat that is fleshy, juicy, more sweet than tart, and that has a small seed. Duhat looks similar to grapes but it is firmer to the touch. The color ranges from dark purple to black. You need to take care not to make a mess when you eat because it may splatter your top with a beautiful shade of purple. Like sineguelas, it is best to sprinkle salt over duhat before eating.
Different parts of the plant are also made into medicine for digestive problems and diabetes. It is also loaded with vitamins and minerals and is known to boost immunity, regulate blood pressure, and many other benefits.
Colors: The colors we’ve chosen are similar to the caimito, but we selected a more saturated purple and green. Make these colors breathe by bringing in a light neutral or white into the mix. Personally, if I had to paint my walls with a color, I’d choose the purple Noble Honor for the walls, and have touches of the lime green Hyper to bring in energy into the space.
Chico Chika
Chico is ovoid in shape and has a rough, brown skin. When ripe, the flesh is soft, sweet, and juicy, with a gritty texture. Pinoy says that when you consume a lot of beer (or alcohol), amoy chico ka, meaning you smell like chico. However, chico doesn’t smell like beer at all so I don’t really know the origin of this idiom.
Like the other fruits mentioned here, chico also has medicinal properties that can cure various ailments like cough, cold, diarrhea, and fever. It’s also rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
Colors: This is one of the few fruits mentioned here that has a restrained color palette. In chico’s case, we have a combination of light and dark brown. Maybe you can go for these colors and/or mix them with Pantone’s Color for 2025 Mocha Mousse.
Guyabano Gains
Guyabano has a green soft-spined exterior and a white pulp that has a complex taste of sweet, sour, and tangy. Embedded in the pulp could be an average of 150 seeds when the fruit is mature. Plant guyabano seeds to grow trees, which would take about 3 to 5 years to produce their first crop.
Guyabano is known as a Vitamin C bomb which can boost immune health. Like the other fruits, guyabano offers a lot of health benefits, and some say even anti-cancer properties.
Colors: You can’t go wrong with this monochromatic duo of Dark Tingle and Just About Green. The monochromatic color scheme is the easiest of color combinations to pull off so if you’re a newbie in color stories, choose this one. With this combination, you can create an interesting space that is restful to the eyes.
Langka Love
Langka has a spiky yellowish green outer rind when ripe, which contains sweet, luscious bright yellow pulp that is stringy and chewy. Inside the pulp are numerous seeds that can also be eaten when boiled. The unripe fruit when cooked is often used as a meat substitute. Langka has a fruity aroma that some people may find unpleasant because to them it has a musky and pungent undertone that they describe as having the odor of overripe fruit, stinky cheese, or smelly feet.
However, many Pinoys love it and use it in desserts or savory dishes. It also has medicinal benefits like regulating blood pressure, enhancing immunity, improving digestion, to name a few. Langka may also be an aphrodisiac, which is arguably a benefit too.
Colors: Green and yellow is an analogous color scheme that will always look good because they are next to each other in the color wheel. The combination has a natural harmony and can be very pleasing to the eye. The green and yellow combo also spells sunshine freshness.
Color Inspiration from Philippine Summer Fruits
Color inspiration can be found everywhere around you. With nature, like these Philippine summer fruits, you can never go wrong. Study nature and you get a masterclass in color combinations.
Are you aware that this is the last day of April? Four months of 2025 is just about to end. Tomorrow is May 1…Labor Day…a holiday. I will celebrate by not doing any labor. Maybe I’ll go out and get some of these summer fruits. Or maybe a halo-halo. Do yourself a favor too, and get a stash of yummy refreshing goodness to survive the wilting with grace.
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