Xinjiang Fruits: What’s in Season When You Visit

Fruit in Xinjiang is not a side note to the trip. It is the reason a lot of the round trips I do in late summer stop three or four times in villages that have no other reason to exist. The light is harsh and the irrigation is old, and between the two you get fruit with more sugar than anywhere I travel to in the same season. I have paid almost nothing for a bag of apricots the size of plums, eaten standing up, in a town between Turpan and the mountains.

The Season Runs Longer Than You Expect

Most visitors arrive expecting melons and grapes and find them in July and August, which is right, but the calendar starts earlier and finishes later than the signs suggest. Apricots come off the trees in Turpan around the end of June and are gone in a matter of weeks. Cherries and early peaches sit in the weeks just before that. By September the focus shifts to grapes and dates, and by late September and October you are into the nuts, which is the part most itineraries skip.

If your trip is fixed, plan around the fruit rather than squeezing it in. See our Turpan grape valley guide for what the vineyards look like at different points in the season, and the fruit and melon guide for the full regional picture.

Melons First, and Why the Name Matters

Xinjiang melons are the ones people photograph, and Hami is the name attached to the best known. A good one is heavy for its size, has a faint aroma even through the skin, and gives slightly at the blossom end. The ones sold cut open in the market are usually the right ones, because a whole melon that has been sitting since yesterday is a disappointment you only find after paying.

What surprises people is how much sweetness varies. Two melons side by side at the same stall can differ by a third, and the difference is not ripeness but where the fruit grew and how much water it got. Asking the seller which field it came from sounds odd and gets you a real answer.

Grapes, Raisins and the Dry Season

Turpan turns the grape into a dried product on a scale that is hard to grasp. Long racks in the courtyards, green grapes shrinking on them all through autumn, and by winter the same fruit sold as green raisins, golden raisins, and the dark ones nobody translates. You can buy the fresh fruit in the market in September and the same thing dried for the trip home in November.

If you want to understand why the dried fruit here tastes so intense, the courtyards themselves are the answer. Look at the grape valley of Turpan, which walks through the vineyards, the drying racks, and the houses built around them.

Apricots, Walnuts and the Southern Oases

In the south, around Kashgar and Hotan, the fruit leans toward apricots, plums, pomegranates, and then the nuts. The apricot season is short and the best fruit does not travel, so the markets in the two weeks it lasts are the only place to get it. Outside that window you get the dried version, which is sweeter and more concentrated and shows up in the bazaar all winter.

Walnuts from the south are among the largest I have seen sold anywhere, and they come fresh with the green husk still on in some markets. They dry fast and store for months. For the wider nut and snack picture, the walnut and nut snacks guide covers what is worth buying and what is not.

Buying Without Getting Ripped Off

Three habits carry you most of the way. Point at the fruit, not at the price sign, and let the seller pick what he thinks is right for you. Ask to taste before you commit to a whole bag, particularly for melons and pomegranates. And buy early in the morning, because what is left at four in the afternoon has been sitting in the sun since noon and the price drops for a reason.

Prices are usually per kilo and posted, so the bargaining is lighter than for carpets. Our bargaining guide explains where a little gentle pushback is expected and where it is not, and the Sunday bazaar page covers the layout of the big one.

Taking It Home

Fresh fruit is awkward. Most countries limit what you can bring in, and a bag of fresh apricots is a customs problem you do not need. Dried fruit is the practical answer, and it travels well, sorts clearly at the border, and is genuinely better than the supermarket version. Pack it in a sealed commercial bag rather than the stall’s paper wrap.

Watermelons travel worst of all and are worth eating the day you buy them. Grapes survive a day or two in a cool place with the stems intact; pick them off the bunch as you eat and never wash the whole tray beforehand, because water on the stems ruins the rest.

A Short Season Calendar

Late June to early July: apricots, early melons, cherries in the north. July into August: melons at their best, grapes starting, peaches and plums. September: grapes, dates, pomegranates, the first nuts. October: walnuts, almonds, dried fruit on the racks. Outside those windows you get the dried versions and the stored fruit, which is fine but is not the same trip.

Fruit is the thing most likely to make you late for your own itinerary, and in my experience that is worth the cost.