Smoothie bowls and the fruit of Sri Lanka, by season

Sri Lanka has fruit on the table in every month: banana, papaya, pineapple and coconut all year, mango at its peak from about May to August. At Ohana we blend that fruit into three smoothie bowls from 2,400 LKR and press it into juices from 1,500 LKR. Here is the fruit, one by one, and then the bowls.

Is there a fruit season in Sri Lanka?

Less than you might think. The island is tropical and has two monsoons that arrive on opposite coasts at different times, so something is always ripe somewhere. A few fruits have a clear peak. Most of the ones in a breakfast bowl do not.

One honest note. We looked for an official month-by-month calendar and did not find one we could link, so the months below are "about", from travel and farming sources, and we say where we found nothing.

The fruit, one by one

• Mango. The fruit with a real season. One guide to the island's fruit gives May to August, with June as the peak, and Sri Lanka has several varieties of its own. Unripe mango goes into curries and into achcharu, the sour and spicy snack sold at the roadside.
• Papaya. The orange base of many breakfast bowls. It is grown commercially on the island and we have not found a source that gives it a season. It is in three plates on our breakfast menu.
• Pineapple. Also grown commercially, also without a calendar we could confirm. Ripe, it is sweet and sharp at once.
• Passion fruit. A newspaper piece on its farming describes it as a crop for the whole year. The pulp is sour and perfumed, seeds and all, so it is spooned over sweeter fruit more often than eaten alone.
• Banana. No single season. The island grows many varieties, 29 by one count, so one or another is always ripe.
• Wood apple. The strange one. It is native to Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, and it has a shell so hard that it must be cracked open. Inside is a sticky brown pulp, sweet or sour, that is made into juice and jam. One account that cites the Department of Agriculture puts its fruiting from about June to October. In Sinhala it is divul.
• King coconut. The orange coconut you see in bunches at the roadside. It is a variety native to Sri Lanka, called thambili, and it is grown for drinking. Its water is sweeter and lighter than that of the green coconut.

We do not serve wood apple. If you are curious, look for divul juice at a local juice stall. It tastes like nothing else.

What is in our smoothie bowls?

A smoothie bowl is fruit blended thick and cold, eaten with a spoon, with something crunchy on top. Ours are made to order.

• Tropical Smoothie Bowl, 3,200 LKR. Papaya, banana and pineapple blended with coconut milk, then crowned with sliced fruit, our kithul granola, coconut and seeds.
• Cocoa and Nut Smoothie Bowl, 2,400 LKR. Banana and cocoa blended with coconut milk and our own peanut butter, under granola, cashews and seeds.
• Matcha Vitality Bowl, 2,900 LKR. Avocado, banana and matcha blended with spinach, gotukola and moringa, under passion fruit and seeds. A green bowl for a slow morning.
• Papaya Curd Bowl, 2,300 LKR. Not a smoothie, but a cousin: thick, gently sour buffalo curd in half a papaya, with our granola, coconut, lime and mint.

The granola is made here, with oats, kithul treacle, cashews and pumpkin seeds. Kithul is the island's palm syrup. If you have an allergy, the full menu lists what is in every bowl.

Which juices and fruit plates do we make?

• Fresh Watermelon Juice, 1,500 LKR. Pressed every morning and poured pink, sweet and cold.
• Fresh Pineapple Juice, 1,700 LKR, and Fresh Mango Juice, 1,800 LKR.
• Mango Lassi, 1,900 LKR. Sri Lankan curd and ripe mango, blended cold with a ribbon of kithul.
• Tropical Passion Smoothie, 2,200 LKR. Passion fruit with mango and banana, blended with cold milk.
• Coconut Water, 800 LKR. The water of the king coconut, poured into a glass over ice. It comes in a glass, not in the whole coconut.
• Royal Fruit Platter, 7,900 LKR. One big tray for two or three: mango, papaya, pineapple, watermelon and banana, with passion fruit spooned over.

The same fruit goes into drinks later in the day: a Passion Fruit Iced Tea at 1,300 LKR, a Mango Iced Tea at 1,400 LKR, and Pinepash, a mocktail of pineapple and passion fruit, at 2,200 LKR. For children there is the Little Watermelon, a child-sized glass with a straw, at 800 LKR.

On our menu the juices and smoothies are listed with breakfast, from 08:00 to 11:00. Later in the day, ask: now and then, when the bar can, it still makes one.

How do you eat fruit well on this coast?

• Buy what is in front of you. The fruit piled highest at the stall is the fruit of the week.
• Ask for it ripe for today. Sellers choose differently for today and for three days from now.
• Try a banana you do not know. There are many kinds, and the seller will tell you which is sweet and which is sour.
• Drink a king coconut after the beach. Sri Lankans have always reached for it in the heat.
• Wash or peel fruit you buy at the roadside, as you would anywhere.

We make no promises about what fruit does for the body. It is fresh, it is ripe and it is cold. For us that is reason enough.

What goes with a bowl?

Coffee, for most people, or matcha: read about matcha and oat milk by the sea. If you want the island's own morning dishes beside your fruit, see Sri Lankan breakfast explained. Everything else we cook in the morning is on our page for breakfast and brunch near Hiriketiya, and the plant-based plates are in vegan and healthy food in Dikwella.

Good to know

• Breakfast, with the bowls and juices, is served from 08:00 to 11:00, every day.
• We are at Turtle Beach, Dikwella, less than five minutes by road from Hiriketiya.
• Prices are in LKR, plus a 10% service charge.
• The Papaya Curd Bowl and the Royal Fruit Platter are also on the dessert menu, from 11:00 to 21:00.
• Filtered water is on the house.