Nowadays, the normal 'concubine's smile' lychees on the market in Xiamen city (Fujian province) are sold for more than 6.5 EUR a kilogram. The uncommon rice cake dumpling lychees and cassia taste lychees, of a better breed and with a better taste, are all going for more than 15.67 EUR a kilogram. Prices generally are three times higher than last year.
Lychees will be ripe and enter the Xiamen market in the middle of June probably. When that time comes, many lychees from Longhai county in Zhangzhou city will also supplement the market. In former years the most ideal season for planting lychees took place in June and July, since prices were as low as 0.26 EUR. Will the price for the fruit this year substantially drop during those months, or not?
This won't be possible this year. People within the business have analyzed that, although lychees this year are concentrated in the market, the price won't be much lower. Lychees need rain to blossom, but there has not been enough rain to stimulate the lychees to open up. Therefore, the number of actual fruit has been reduced a lot. According to feedback given by local farmers, there will be 7 times less lychees than in better years. Many rare kinds of lychee trees even grew no fruit at all.