Tamarindus indica - Flowering Tamarind Tree in San Diego, CA.

I use Tamarind a lot when cooking.

I never use it in cooking. lol! I know the fruit taste very sweet when fresh.

It's an essential ingredient in Asian cooking that is used for its sour taste.

I never think of tamarind as being sour. It's usually very sweet. I'm guessing you're not using tamarind fresh, right?

I like Inga edulis (Ice Cream Bean tree fruit) so much better, as its cottony pulp reminds me of cotton candy. It's also it's a very widely grown tree here in San Diego. The only drawback is the ice cream tree becomes so damned large, extremely fast. This is why I keep mine in a pot (it doesn't produce fruit, though).

Correct. I use pulp when I can get it, or concentrate if I can't.

I'm guessing the concentrated form is sour?

I suspect that the fruits are harvested earlier to get that sourness.................

I guess that's true. I've only tasted them when they're
ripe and sweet. Tamarind grows wild in open fields on the dry side of the Hawaiian Islands. I never liked getting the fruit because thousands of cane spiders, roaches, scorpions and other creepy bugs live in the thickets of tamarind.

I've never seen fruit on tamarind trees here in San Diego...maybe the climate is not tropical enough. The trees are very, very tropical.

"I never liked getting the fruit because thousands of cane spiders, roaches, scorpions and other creepy bugs live in the thickets of tamarind."

What's up with them??!!!!

What do you mean?

I remember my uncle used to live across the street from a huge field of wild tamarind in Ewa Beach, HI (the "w" in Ewa is pronounced like a "v"). So many critters lived in there...Yuck!

At one time Ewa Beach was nothing but sugar cane fields and wild tamarind fields. Now, it's surrounded by golf courses, which most of the locals hate.