Imagine stepping out of your door and being surrounded by trees dripping with tropical fruits.
That’s the daily reality for Peter and Nora Brils, who own and operate a 13 acre exotic fruit orchard and nursery at Mooball, near Burringbar.
Their farm, which Nora calls her ‘Garden of Eden’, is home to more than 40 varieties of fruit trees, which include everything from jaboticaba to jackfruit, sapotes to soursop and longan to lemonade fruit, all of which fruit at different times throughout the year.
Each week Peter and Nora head out into the orchard to pick a selection of their fresh home grown fruit for their Mullumbimby Farmers Market stall, Jungle Juice, where they blend it into a range of fresh fruit smoothies and juices.
Along with the more familiar juice blends like watermelon, orange and pineapple, Peter and Nora offer some more exotic choices from the orchard – like the rich and creamy Black Mamba smoothie, made from black sapote – otherwise known as chocolate pudding fruit – coconut cream, banana and milk; and the Dragon Tail, which combines, dragonfruit, passionfruit, berries and banana.
They also offer whole fresh fruit in season, with a variety of citrus throughout he winter months and tropical fruit over the summer. Nora says the black sapote, also known as chocolate pudding fruit, will be available from now until Christmas, as will the jaboticaba – a small round purple fruit similar to a grape in flavour and appearance. Other exotics like soursops, starfruit, abiu and jackfruit also make a regular appearance at their stall- “as long as the birds don’t get to them first,” Nora laughs.
Always keen to try something new, Peter and Nora have also recently added what are known as a smoothie bowls to their market menu, a bowl filled with a thickened version of either their dragonfruit smoothie, or a creamier banana and berry blend, stopped with granola, coconut, fresh seasonal fruit and a choice of healthy extras like acai, chia seeds or spirulina. They are a fresh and nutritious alternative to breakfast cereal, especially in summer. “It’s quite concentrated in fruit and quite filling, it’s like a meal,” said Nora, “People love them.”
Find Jungle Juice at the Mullumbimby Farmers Market every Friday.
– Story and pic by Kate O’Neill
