Seasonal Fruit at a Korean Market — 12 Finds, Spring 2026
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Buying Seasonal Fruit at a Korean Traditional Market — A Spring 2026 Visit
This was honestly my first time properly exploring the fruit section of a Korean traditional market. In early April 2026, my wife and I headed to a wholesale agricultural and seafood market in Daejeon — a mid-sized city in central South Korea — bright and early one morning. If you've ever been curious about Korean fruit prices, what's actually in season, or how traditional market culture works over here, this should give you a decent picture. I've compared everything against supermarket prices and walked the whole place on foot so you don't have to guess.
Today's post is all about fruit. I'll cover the veg and seafood sections another time.
The morning market is absolute chaos
Korean wholesale markets are best visited first thing in the morning if you want the best prices. Fruit here is noticeably cheaper than in supermarkets, but the trade-off is the sheer pandemonium at that hour. Delivery lorries are constantly coming and going, loading and unloading without pause. Finding a parking space is a battle in itself, and you need to keep your wits about you just walking around. I must have told my wife to hold my hand and watch her step about a dozen times.
The moment we stepped through the entrance, a trolley heaped with red packing crates came rattling past. At this hour, the market belongs to the traders rather than ordinary shoppers — people who run small grocers and corner shops nearby come here to buy in bulk and resell at their own places. So the early morning crowd is mostly folk who are there to work, not browse.
Korean Apples — Rough on the Outside, Brilliant on the Inside
The first thing you notice inside is the apples. Bags from different growing regions — Cheongsong, Busa, Yeongdong — are stacked high, and at roughly £6.60 a bag, they're clearly cheaper than supermarket prices. Korean apples aren't much to look at, if I'm honest. You won't find that glossy, polished sheen you get on imported apples in Tesco. That shine comes from a food-grade wax coating, and most Korean apples simply aren't treated that way.
Bite through the skin and you get this wonderfully crisp crunch, then a burst of juice — it's genuinely lovely. Fuji-type varieties here typically measure around 14–15 Brix in sweetness, and premium cultivars like Gamhong can reach 17 Brix. The best apple-growing regions in Korea sit at high altitudes where the day-to-night temperature difference exceeds 13°C, which produces firm flesh and high sugar content. I remember biting into a waxy, mealy imported apple abroad once and feeling thoroughly let down — it really made me appreciate just how good Korean apples are.
Chamoe — a fruit you can only really get in Korea
Next to the apples, bags of bright yellow chamoe were piled up. Chamoe originally hails from Africa and made its way to East Asia via India, but these days it's essentially only grown in Korea. China and Japan used to cultivate it too, but it's all but disappeared there. Its English name is literally Korean melon — that's how closely it's associated with the country. A bag was going for about £10.50, with smaller ones at around £5.50 beside them. The flavour is sweet with a distinctly crisp, almost crunchy texture — once you've tried it, it rather sticks with you.
A Stroll Through the Spring Fruit Section
Here's the fruit section in full. Watermelons, chamoe, apples, pears, mandarins, tomatoes — all lined up on both sides of the aisle. It's not just one shop, either; several stalls sit side by side, so you can easily compare as you go. With all the spring seasonal fruit on display, you could lose half an hour just having a good look around. My wife was darting from one side to the other, eyes like saucers.
Korean Pear — a completely different league from Conference pears
These are Korean pears. Some were in fancy gift packaging and others just stacked loose — and they're a fair size, noticeably larger than what you'd find in a British supermarket. The pears most of us know — your Conference, your Williams — are that classic elongated shape with soft, slightly grainy flesh. Korean pears, by contrast, are round, large, and wonderfully crisp. One slice and your mouth is practically swimming in juice. In the West, pears are often considered a bit bland and end up poached or turned into perry, but Korean pears are at their absolute best eaten raw. The sheer volume of juice is on another level entirely.
Strawberry Season — the Must-Try Fruit if You Visit Korea in Spring
It's strawberry season in Korea right now. Come spring, every market you walk into has baskets of bright red strawberries stacked to the brim. At roughly £4.40 a basket, that's comparable to — or even cheaper than — a single punnet at the supermarket, and you get considerably more for your money. If you're visiting Korea in spring, do yourself a favour and buy some strawberries. You won't regret it.
Prices vary from stall to stall even for the same strawberries. This lot was selling Seolhyang strawberries for about £3.30, while a similar size at the previous stall had been £4.40. It's entirely possible to pay £5.50 at one shop, only to spot something better next door for £4.40. That's precisely why you need to do the rounds before buying anything at a market like this. The legwork is non-negotiable.
Apple Green Grapes and Finger Grapes
These are labelled "apple green grapes," though the proper variety name is Autumn Crispy. They look a bit like Shine Muscat grapes but are an entirely different cultivar. The texture is distinctly apple-like — a proper crunch — and the flesh is much firmer than Shine Muscat. A pack was about £5.50, with blueberries right next to them at around £3.85.
Those dark purple, elongated ones in the middle are what Koreans call "finger grapes" — they look genuinely like aubergines, hence the nickname. The actual variety is Black Sapphire. They're seedless, so you eat them skin and all, and the flavour is crisp with a surprisingly intense sweetness. They've become quite trendy in Korea recently as an imported grape, and you'll often see them displayed right alongside the green varieties.
Tomatoes — Eaten as Fruit in Korea
The tomato selection was impressive too. Ripe red tomatoes were going for roughly £8.25 to £11 a box, while the greenish Daeji tomatoes — a speciality from the southern coast — sat at about £5.50 to £7.70. In Korea, tomatoes are treated much more like fruit than like vegetables. Daeji tomatoes in particular have this unique character — slightly salty yet sweet — and they're enormously popular in spring. Some people dip them in sugar; plenty of others just rinse them and bite straight in. Right now is peak season.
There were black tomatoes as well — about £5.50 a pack — noticeably darker than the standard red ones. Beside them sat blueberries, avocados, mandarins, pears, and apples, all at a single stall. Being able to eyeball and compare this many different fruits in one spot is one of the genuine advantages of shopping at a market like this.
Imported Fruit — Mangoes, Oranges, and Pineapple
They had mangoes too. Most mangoes sold in Korea are imported — the climate simply isn't suited to growing tropical fruit, aside from a handful of greenhouse operations on Jeju Island and parts of the south coast that produce tiny quantities. Because anything subpar gets filtered out during the import process, the mangoes that do make it to Korea tend to be top quality. The flavour is spot-on, but the price reflects it: roughly £9.90 a box. When you think about what apples or strawberries cost, it's a fair step up.
Oranges were stacked up along one side as well. Most oranges in Korea come from the US or Australia, and at the market they're typically sold in bags rather than individually. Buying them loose at a supermarket bumps the per-unit price up quite a bit, so bagged market oranges are a much better deal. They were sorted by size, and the stallholder reckoned the larger ones had more juice. My wife suggested peeling one to try, but they weren't offering samples so we moved on.
Pineapples were roughly £2.75 each. They're imported, but buying them here at the market is noticeably cheaper than at the supermarket. The watermelons visible below are Korea's quintessential summer fruit, so in spring their prices were still on the high side.
Special Finds — White Strawberries and Chilean Grapes
These are white strawberries — a variety called Mannyeonseol, which translates roughly as "eternal snow." The colour really is naturally white. They're about 20% sweeter than regular red strawberries with almost no tartness at all, just pure sweetness. Premium grade was about £10.50 for 1kg, with second grade at around £5.50 — definitely pricier than normal strawberries. Stock is limited, so if you spot them, they're worth a punt.
Chilean Crunch Farm grapes were also about £5.50 a pack. When it's spring in Korea, it's autumn in Chile, so freshly harvested grapes from the southern hemisphere arrive in good supply at this time of year. Behind them I could see kiwis, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and finger grapes all clustered together in one section — it felt a bit like walking through a fruit exhibition.
Kiwis, Cherry Tomatoes, and Bananas
Green kiwis were about £2.75 a pack, and cherry tomatoes came in at roughly £5.50 for 2kg. Those greenish tomatoes on the left are the Daeji variety I mentioned earlier. Korean markets often display tomatoes right alongside the fruit, which really underlines how strongly Koreans view them as fruit rather than vegetables.
Bananas were roughly £2.20 a bunch. That's obviously more than you'd pay in Southeast Asia, but among imported fruit in Korea, bananas are comfortably the best value for money. When you consider mangoes at £9.90 a box or blueberries at £8.25 a pack, bananas are an absolute steal.
Domestic and Imported Side by Side — a Uniquely Korean Market Scene
This particular stall had a Seongju chamoe gift set at about £19.80, five avocados for roughly £5.50, premium blueberries at £8.25, and Crunch Farm grapes at £5.50. What makes Korean traditional markets so interesting is precisely this — fruits from completely different countries of origin sitting together at the same stall. And those handwritten price tags are a detail you simply won't find in a supermarket.
Five avocados for roughly £5.50. Avocados aren't as widely eaten in Korean homes as you might expect. They crop up in cafés and brunch spots quite regularly, but not many people buy them to prepare at home. My wife's a fan, but I'm not fussed, so I gave them a miss this time round. We'd already picked up three punnets of strawberries, so I reckoned that was job done.
Three Punnets of Strawberries for £5.50 — the Market Rewards Those Who Walk
What we actually bought
All that traipsing from stall to stall comparing prices properly paid off. We ended up finding three punnets of strawberries for about £5.50. Each punnet was roughly 500g, so it was a serious haul. We demolished one punnet that same evening, and the other two went straight into the freezer. I was genuinely glad we hadn't bought from the first stall we saw. At a market like this, putting in the legwork is everything.
The Honest Downsides
The market is massive, and my legs were aching by the end. We only covered the fruit section and it still took well over an hour. Some stalls didn't have prices displayed at all, so you had to ask — which could be tricky if you don't speak Korean.
That said, you'll find varieties here that supermarkets simply don't stock, and the fun of comparing prices from stall to stall is a genuine draw. If you're visiting Korea, popping into a traditional market at least once makes for a properly memorable experience.
Next time I'm planning to cover the vegetable and seafood sections. After all, a market this size doesn't begin and end with fruit.