A different kind of sweet

Fan Tianhuan, who started growing Arhat fruit 37 years ago, conducts tests on his fruit farm.

In traditional Chinese pharmacology, the fruit is known for its ability to balance inner heat. Better than that, it is also used in herbal cough medicines, especially for chronic coughs, throat inflammations and constipation.

As an infusion, it quenches thirst, and in high summer, it is also used to treat heat stroke.

"It is a good sugar substitute in drinks, cakes, candies - and is used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat diabetes and obesity," Fan says. "We often use it to brew herbal teas or Chinese tonic soups."

Although Longjiang town in Yongfu is now known for its fresh and dried Arhat fruits, it was not so when Fan started taking the lead in its mass cultivation in the early 1990s. Things were pretty rough at first.

It was all about keeping quality and standards.

"I invented this as a standard measurement," Fan picks up a specially made ruler with a row of different sized holes on it. The idea is to fit the fruit into the holes to categorize them into small, medium, large and premium sizes.

Villagers who had joined the plantation cooperative were not happy when Fan insisted that they should sell only those fruits that reached "ruler standards". In the first few years, almost 40 percent of the fruits did not make the grade.

"They all said I was creating trouble for myself," Fan says. "But, I believe the only way to push this healthy fruit to a wider audience is to ensure quality by detailing the standards in terms of production and processing."

As he strived for higher standards, Fan came up against another wall - the disappearing art of drying the fruit properly so it can be kept. Fresh luohan guo is hard to store, so the fruit is almost always sold dried.