Bunch of grapes sells for £8,350 in Japan

Anchor Moy · Post by **Anchor Moy** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:16 pm

Giving rare and expensive fruit as a gift gives you high status in Japan. I get the feeling that it's more about how much it cost to buy than whether the fruit is any good, despite what they say here.

AP

The bunch of about 30 grapes of the Ruby Roman variety sold for 1.1m yen (£8,350) – about £270 a grape. Each grape is roughly the size of a ping pong ball.

The grapes are grown in Ishikawa prefecture, and to qualify for the Ruby Roman designation, each grape must weigh at least 20g and have a sugar content of at least 18%.

According to the Ruby Roman club website run by the Ishikawa prefecture, the cultivation process began in 1992 when seeds of the Fujiminori variety were sown. Over the years, they were then cultivated into the Roman Ruby variety, which was named after submissions from the public in 2004. The first grapes went on sale in 2008, and prices have been rising ever since.

Seasonal fruit offerings in Japan routinely attract large sums from buyers seeking social prestige, or from shop owners keen to attract customers...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... 0-in-japan

And I'm sure someone has an appropriate meme for this ...

The king of fruits in the country is the melon, which serves as a status symbol akin to a vintage wine, and is given as a high-ranking gift. A single pair of melons fetched 1.5m yen at an auction last year.

SinnSisamouth · Post by **SinnSisamouth** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 9:59 pm

good price.

John Bingham · Post by **John Bingham** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 11:36 pm

SinnSisamouth wrote:good price.

Juansweetpotato reckons they should only be £8,300.

mammothboy2 · Post by **mammothboy2** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:32 am

My Japanese years are behind me and my memory is far from perfect, but I clearly remember a period when one particular kind of mushroom was selling for over $700 a mushroom and when there were headlines about an active smuggling trade from North Korea (DPRK) involving rare mushrooms and freshwater fish changing hands for several thousand dollars a kilo.

bolueeleh · Post by **bolueeleh** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 9:58 am