Checking today’s harvest…
Tamáty is pulling together the freshest seasonal guide for you.
Checking today’s harvest…
Tamáty is pulling together the freshest seasonal guide for you.
Atemoya is just entering its natural U.S. harvest window.
South Florida atemoya harvest begins in fall and supplies fresh markets. Store availability outside a natural U.S. harvest window may come from imports, domestic storage, or controlled-environment production.
Native origin
Why it belongs now
Selected for California
South Florida. Active U.S. growing states include Florida.
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Native origin
Native to
Cultivated hybrid; Florida origin
Annona × atemoya
Major growing regions today
Florida · Hawaii · Australia · Taiwan · Brazil · Israel · Thailand
Global production regions; U.S. harvest timing is shown separately below.
The story of atemoya
Atemoya combines the tropical character of sugar apple with the cool-highland heritage of cherimoya.
Atemoya does not have a native wilderness or an ancient center of domestication of its own. It is a cultivated hybrid between sugar apple (Annona squamosa) and cherimoya (Annona cherimola), two related fruits with different geographic histories. Sugar apple is associated with tropical America, although its earliest domestication history is not fully resolved, while cherimoya traces its ancestry to the Andean region of western South America.
The first documented atemoya cross was made in 1908 by horticulturist P. J. Wester in Miami, Florida. Its name combines “ate,” a name used for sugar apple, with the ending of “cherimoya.” Breeders sought a fruit that united sugar apple’s tropical vigor and segmented sweetness with cherimoya’s rich, custard-like flesh and larger fruit.
Atemoya later attracted growers in warm subtropical and tropical regions, including Florida, Hawaii, Australia, Taiwan, Brazil, Israel, and Thailand. Cultivars differ in skin texture, shape, seediness, flavor, and tolerance of heat or cool conditions. Because pollination can be unreliable, commercial orchards may use hand pollination to improve fruit set and shape.
Today, atemoya is prized for aromatic white flesh often described as creamy, floral, and gently tangy. Its modern growing map should not be mistaken for a native range: every atemoya tree belongs to a horticultural lineage created by crossing two older cultivated fruits.