A Search for the World’s Best Durian, the Divisive Fruit That’s Prized—and Reviled

Devotees of the crop journey to a Malaysian island to find the most fragrant and tasty specimens

By Tom Downey

Photographs by Annice Lyn

July/August 2025

durian fuit — One of the most popular and expensive varieties of durian, the Musang King is known for its bittersweet flavor and creamy consistency. Each fruit can weigh up to eight pounds. Annice Lyn

Key takeaways: What is the durian fruit?

The durian fruit is famous for its strong aroma that many people find repulsive.
Native to Southeast Asia, the fruit has a wide range of flavors, depending on where it is grown, how ripe it is and how it is prepared.

Once you actually taste and smell a ripe durian, the Southeast Asian fruit best known for its penetrating odor, you will understand what all the fuss is about—and why it’s banned from some public spaces throughout the region. You may not like the taste, but you will appreciate the passion and revulsion the fruit inspires. You may also marvel at the strange ways those sentiments converge. “It has something we call hong,” a sudden smell—in this case, the aroma of “bad breath and butane gas,” said Wong Peng Ho, a Malaysian Chinese doctor and durian fanatic, as we shared a particularly pungent fruit on the Malaysian island of Penang, just off the country’s west coast. “You know how when you smell butane and you know it’s not good, but you want to continue sniffing anyway? That’s hong.” Later, sampling a fruit at a remote durian farm, Marcus Morris, a Canadian digital nomad who moved to Penang largely based on the fruit’s availability, proclaimed, “This durian has the flavor of a penny. It’s like licking a brass doorknob.” (He meant that as a compliment.)

the white sac of durian fruit cradles the pulp — The white sac of durian fruit cradles the pulp. Annice Lyn

True durian aficionados don’t just accept extreme flavors; they celebrate, savor, even exult in them. The late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once said of its aroma, “Try leaving cheese or a dead body out in the sun and you’re in the same neighborhood as durian.” The fruit is complex in taste and smell, varied in texture, and surprising in its effects. Flavors can span sweet, bitter, acidic, fatty and creamy, with specific tasting notes that might include cacao, blue cheese, pumpkin, or even bacon or chives. In texture, durian can resemble cheese, custard, ice cream or overripe stone fruit. Some of the most sought-after durian boasts a rare and peculiar numbing effect, much like mala peppers, used in Sichuan cuisine. The smell, which at first can evoke garbage, raw onions and garlic, seems, as you grow to appreciate durian, to shade into more positive notes such as whole milk, strong cheese and high-proof rum. Almost all desirable durian, at least in Malaysia, has fermented to the point that it has a slight or strong taste of alcohol. In short, durian contains multitudes not found in any other raw fruit or vegetable, perhaps not in any other uncooked food. (Sashimi or beef tartare connoisseurs may disagree.)

a man smells durian fruit — Shop owner Teh Boon Teik, also known as “Fatty,” punctures a durian with his knife, then inhales the aroma to determine its quality. Annice Lyn

No place on earth draws more fanatics than Penang, the world’s mecca for durian lovers. One night last summer in George Town, Penang’s cosmopolitan capital city, I marveled at the Malaysian, Singaporean and Chinese durian lovers thronging Macalister Road, the city’s main durian-eating strip. I strolled past stalls stacked high with pale green, prehistoric-looking specimens. Durian is a formidable, nearly impregnable fortress of a fruit, weighing between two and eight pounds and armor-plated with sharp, triangular spikes that pierce the skin if you touch them in the wrong way. Though it goes on sale at midday, it’s most popular to consume at night, likely because Malaysians believe it is “heaty,” meaning it makes you feel warm, and Penang is scorching during the day. When I visited, locals and visitors were arranged around tables, eating, talking, laughing, savoring the experience, as they might at a cocktail bar or gelateria elsewhere in the world.

Cover image of the Smithsonian Magazine July/August 2025 issue

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This article is a selection from the July/August 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine

A durian stand on iconic Macalister Road in George Town. Annice Lyn

Even here, however, on the finest durian-eating street in the durian capital of the world, spectacular durian remains elusive. No vendor will simply hand you world-class fruit, no matter how much research you do or what price you pay. Great durian, they seem to believe, has to be earned by your selection acumen. So, to eat fantastic fruit, you first need to learn how to choose the perfect durian. At one stall, I watched as the matriarch of a family engaged a fruit vendor. There was a short, sharp exchange in a Chinese dialect, likely Hokkien. The matriarch started smelling fruit, weighing the spiky samples with her hands and haggling with the seller. At long last, she made a selection, and the vendor knocked on the fruit with a stick, usually done to assess ripeness. Then, bracing it with a gloved hand, he masterfully inserted a small, sharp knife into just the right place and pried open the shell to reveal the oblong, edible yellow-orange pods that lay within.

Durian fruit is weighed — Teik prepares durian at his shop, removing the fruit’s hard, spiky shell before weighing the flesh and pricing it for purchase Annice Lyn

Following her lead, I went through the motions—sniffing, probing, haggling for fruit. But of course it was all in vain, because I knew nothing. After a few nights of aimless wandering and random tasting, I realized something important: Unlike local people, who have had durian wisdom passed down to them by their friends and relatives, I desperately needed a guide, someone who could help me decipher this array of very strange fruit. In search of this knowledge, I came across a distinct breed of sojourners—fruit travelers—who crisscross the earth in search of just-off-the-tree, perfectly ripe produce. I also discovered that Penang durian growers were in the midst of an existential struggle over the future of this fruit.

Fortunately, like virtually all foreigners searching for their durian whisperer, I had found, online, Lindsay Gasik, an American woman who for more than a dozen years has been on a worldwide quest to eat the best durian—and to teach others some of what she has learned. That was how, a few days after leaving George Town, I found myself at a small farm in Balik Pulau, Penang’s durian-growing heartland, with hilly slopes rolling down to the Strait of Malacca, where Gasik was conducting a “master class” for durian novices. I hoped to learn to select prime durian, open it and analyze its taste.

a map of malaysia — Eritrea Dorcely / Smithsonian

For Gasik, now 36, it all started 16 years ago, while she was working at what she describes as a hippie festival in the northwestern United States. She smelled something strange in the campsites and outdoor classrooms of the event. She asked around. She sniffed. She asked around some more. Finally, an older man told her that she was smelling durian, a magical fruit from Southeast Asia. A superfood. The healthiest thing in the world. “If you eat it, you will get addicted to it,” he told her. “It elevates your spirit, opens your chakras. Durian will change your life.” He was right about the addiction.

custard-like inner pulp held in a persons hand — Durian's custard-like inner pulp. Annice Lyn

Gasik finally found durian at a local Oregon market, tasted it and loved it so much that she flew to Southeast Asia. Since then, durian has become her vocation and her profession, and it remains her obsession. She started a blog called Year of the Durian about her quest, and she has become one of the most famous and knowledgeable foreign durian guides on the planet, with close to 100,000 followers on Instagram and a budding small business—also called Year of the Durian—that ships high-quality, hand-selected frozen fruit, including cempedak, mangosteen, petai beans and other exotic items, from Asia to the United States. When I contacted the Malaysian government in Penang in search of a local durian expert, I was referred to Gasik. When I met farmers, streetside durian sellers and knowledgeable locals, they, too, suggested I meet her. “Lindsay can find great durian just by the smell of the unopened fruit,” one farmer said. “I don’t have a nose like that.”

a child drinking water from the durian’s outer shell. — Drinking water from the durian’s outer shell. Annice Lyn

The farm where we convened for the class had a simple guesthouse and restaurant made of dark wood set in the middle of the dense greenery of the orchard. Gathered with me were a budding durian farmer, growing the fruit in Costa Rica; an Indian real estate mogul who’d flown in from Hyderabad via Singapore, where pictures he shared seemed to suggest that he’d consumed more fine durian in one day than many aficionados will consume in a lifetime; a Chinese Australian retiree originally from Hong Kong who is a raw food vegan and joins almost every Gasik durian tour (offered a few times a year at various locations in Asia); a California bartender who had, before this trip, only tried frozen durian from Costco; a Vietnamese American durian lover who first tried the fruit in Vietnam; and two Malaysian Chinese entrepreneurs with a durian store in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur and an export business shipping the fruit to China, the most lucrative durian market in the world. Leading us were Gasik; her Swedish husband, Richard Koivusalo, who first met her in person when he was a student in one of her classes; and Teoh Shan Tatt, a Chinese Malaysian guide from Penang who is an obsessive durian hunter and one of the founders of a local historical organization, Penang Hidden Gems.

After a meal composed of long-fermented durian in a pungent curry; intensely bitter green petai beans, also known as stink beans; and an array of raw produce and herbs, we set out on a nighttime durian hunt. “Most durian fall at night and in the early morning,” Gasik explained. “So, as we walk through the orchards you have to be very careful. These fruits are heavy. If you hear a slight whish sound, cover your head and run away from it.” We also needed to be very quiet, Gasik said, so that we could hear where the durian had fallen and locate it.

a plate of Malaysian food — Durian appears in dishes including (top left) acar-acar (pickled vegetables) with durian flower; (small dish, center) kerabu, salad with shredded durian flower; and (top right) gulai tempoyak lemak, a Malaysian curry with fermented durian. Annice Lyn

We marched carefully up the hill, staying on the path as instructed so that we would be out of range from falling fruit. After a few minutes, I heard the gentle thump of a fruit hitting the net. Gasik led us to the location and pointed to the fruit with her flashlight. “This one was caught by a net the farmers set to break its fall,” she said. “So, it didn’t hit so hard.” Then her husband demonstrated how to safely grab a durian: quickly and cautiously, so that you minimize the chances of being hit by another falling object. As he rejoined the pack, durian in hand, we heard two more thuds, and we collected those durians, too.

When a durian naturally detaches from its tree, falling to the ground or in a net, the impact creates tiny cracks in the shell, which begins fermentation. The window of greatness for durian, post-fall, is said to be about 1 to 12 hours. This initial fall is also when the fruit’s aroma is least pungent. “Durians don’t really start to smell until they’ve begun to ferment a bit,” Gasik said, once we were back at the farmhouse. When we smelled the just-fallen durian, there was virtually no scent.

a person splits a durian fruit in half with their hands — Teh Boon Teik, known as "Fatty," opens a durian at his stall, Tua Bui Teik Durians, in Jelutong, George Town, Penang, Malaysia. Annice Lyn

Koivusalo, Gasik’s husband, elaborated. “Fermentation is one way we can control and shape the taste of the fruit,” he said. It’s a bit like sourdough, he went on: We want a certain amount of fermentation but not too much. Good fermentation produces the desired alcohol taste and cuts down on the sweetness by metabolizing the sugar. But if it over-ferments, durian tastes rotten, becomes too bitter and transforms into a fibrous, hard-to-eat mess. Much great food and drink relies on a similar kind of tension: Wine needs a little volatile acidity to give it energy and life, but with too much it begins to taste of vinegar. Dry-aged beef hits a sweet spot after around 30 to 50 days, but sometime after that it becomes more redolent of socks than steak. What’s different about durian is the range of texture and fermentation that combines to achieve a superlative balance. This complexity is, I started to understand, a big part of what excites people so much about this fruit. Fine durian exists on a razor’s edge between extraordinary and awful.

durian hanging from a tree branch — Many connoisseurs believe durian is best enjoyed just hours after it has detached from the tree branches. Annice Lyn

The elusive nature of this balance is clearly part of the fascination for durian enthusiasts: To experience prime durian you need to be in a place where you can eat it shortly after it falls, but the season when that happens, between May and September in Penang, has become even shorter and more unpredictable, likely as a result of climate change. Thus each bite feels like a cosmic, unreproducible convergence. Gasik told us that one of the things she loved about durian was knowing that a superlative fruit she experienced right now would be the only time she ever tasted something exactly like that. This unique sensory experience makes durian meaningful to its devotees in a way that verges on the religious.

Penang’s residents have long cultivated durian. Trees here are old, many of them planted more than a century ago. Connoisseurs seek out fruit from these aged flora because they impart a desirable bitterness, produce a thin-skinned specimen with more edible flesh and yield some durians with an elusive numbing sensation. In Balik Pulau, sea breezes blow through the orchards, bestowing a subtle saline taste on the fruit. Penang durian farming is mostly small-scale, possibly because land here is steep and rocky and thus challenging for industrial agriculture. There are also a number of family-owned organic and biodynamic farms, the latter of which focuses on sustainability and holistic management. In contrast, the monocrop farms of mainland Malaysia and Thailand, a northern agricultural competitor where the fruit is considered ripe and ready to eat when it is much firmer, are large and vast.

a durian being cracked open with a hand held machine — Visitors to Eric Chong’s Green Acres Orchard and Ecolodge in Balik Pulau can take a two-hour tour that includes a durian-opening demonstration. Annice Lyn

In fact, Gasik explained, in Thailand most farmers harvest durian from the tree before it has naturally fallen, then spray it with a chemical ripening agent as they prepare it for sale. (There are other ways to accelerate this process, such as intentionally tossing them on the ground, as Gasik did with fruit she felt needed further fermentation before eating.) This makes the production much more controllable and profitable. The farmers, not nature, get to determine exactly when they want to pick, ripen and sell.

guest eat durian — Guests sample the fruit during a guided durian tasting. Annice Lyn

Most Malaysian farmers, though, believe that interfering with the natural ripening process is a grave sin against the fruit, which should only be eaten after it falls unassisted. Still, with durians recently fetching their highest prices ever, with some specimens selling for more than $100, almost all professional durian farms on Penang now use nets on their trees, allowing farmers to preserve their fruit for as long as possible before it becomes overripe. One exception is Eric Chong, of Green Acres Orchard, who lets all his durian, including the most expensive varieties, fall directly to the ground. “I prefer the natural way,” he told me when I visited his farm. “Durian should start to ferment when it falls. I don’t sell much to the market anyway. I want people to come here and experience not just the fruit but the whole farm.” For hardcore durian lovers, Chong is a prophet who reveres and amplifies what they most love: its ephemeral, utterly unreproducible essence. For them, the greatest durians are always on the verge of destruction and rot.

a tour guide — Chong leads a farm walk to explore 35 different varieties of durian from 450 mature trees on the property. Annice Lyn

But, Gasik tells me, there is a powerful array of forces challenging this view. “People in the durian industry here often look up to Thailand’s industrial durian farms,” she said. “They grow and sell much more durian there because they chemically ripen it, so they can control it. You can make the most money—or you can grow the best fruit. You can’t do both.” And with the Chinese market for durian growing, the fruit’s historic producers—Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines—are facing increasing pressure from upstart growers in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern mainland China itself. “So far,” Gasik went on, “most Malaysian farmers, especially here in Penang, have chosen to grow the best fruit and make less money. The question is whether they will continue to do that.”

a couple look closely at a Durian fruit — Lindsay Gasik and her husband, Richard Koivusalo, first met in person when he enrolled in one of her durian classes. She learned to suss out the best fruit with her nose, chronicling it all on her blog, “Year of the Durian.” If you’re willing to travel, the fruit is always in peak season somewhere in Southeast Asia—loosely following monsoon season. Annice Lyn

A few days later, I drove up a windy road to nearly the top of the mountain that separates Balik Pulau from more densely populated areas of Penang to reach Bao Sheng Durian Farm. Bao Sheng was one of the first biodynamic durian farms in Malaysia, and its owner is credited with calling attention to durian’s numbing properties. There was no signage and no obvious reception desk, though the farm is also a hotel. There was no point of sale for its durians. I hunted around and finally found two foreigners slicing into avocados and downing massive quantities of mangosteens—the telltale signs of raw food vegans at mealtime. They explained that there was no durian for sale here. Everything was eaten by the guests. We started talking, and I learned that these two had traveled here, separately, for the chance to volunteer for a month during durian season. They had to break open the shells for guests and assist on the property. Why had they come here on their own dime to work for free? “Oh, it’s a no-brainer,” Noah Stein, a Californian, said. “We get to eat all the durian we want when we work here. Not the prime stuff, of course, but even the damaged fruit and the rejects here are amazing. I’d do it every day all year if I could.”

a recently fallen durian is caught by a large net — A recently fallen durian is caught by a large net at Bao Sheng Durian Farm in Balik Pulau. Annice Lyn

The next day, Gasik, who’d also worked at this same farm early in her durian career, took me to meet the most intense group of durian enthusiasts she knew: Kenji Tan, a Chinese Malaysian extreme foodie from Penang; Glen Chee, a Singaporean who lived in Johor Bahru, Malaysia; Marcus Morris, the Canadian residing here who’d identified the penny taste; and a group of their friends and family. We met at a little-known farm on a steep hillside that towered over vast rows of high-rise apartment buildings in a working-class part of Penang, near the airport. Tan told me that some members of this group crisscross the country during durian season hitting different farms each weekend, even flying to Borneo in search of a unique durian, only found there, that has red-colored flesh. For Tan, though, nowhere beats Penang. “This is the durian heartland,” he explained. “This farmer—look at the way he smells, touches, selects and opens this fruit. He’s a master. He has people like us up here every week. So, he has to be.”

people in Durian patterned shirts walk hand in hand. — A couple wearing matching durian-patterned shirts traveled from Beijing to Balik Pulau to sample durian at Nature Fruit Farm—a testament to the popularity of the food in many Asian countries. Some durian enthusiasts travel to different farms each weekend during peak season. Annice Lyn

Through the chef and owner of a marvelous Malaysian restaurant in San Francisco called Azalina’s, I met another durian farmer, Tang Boon Ley of Song Hai farms. We sampled his produce in a shaded area of his hilltop farm, eating bittersweet mouthfuls of durian, some of it well-known varieties, and some grown from ungrafted trees, known here as kampong (which means “village” in Malay). Tang said his father worked in the canteen of a British Air Force base on the island and had bought this orchard in 1966. He’d watched him labor for decades in the orchards, climbing up by motorbike every day during harvest, and then riding down with each day’s yield balanced precariously on the bike. Tang grew to love eating durian. Then, when his father could no longer work the farm, he took over. “Eating durian was a hobby for me,” he said. “Now, it’s something more important. My father can’t get up here to the orchard anymore, but we have a durian stall just in front of where he lives. Every day he watches people who go there to eat his durian. He can’t really talk anymore and tell us, but I can see how important it is to him to see all of these people enjoying what he spent his life building.”

a "no durican" sign at the airport — A “No Durians Allowed” sign at Penang International Airport in Malaysia. Durians’ distinctive aroma has been compared to skunk spray or rotten onions, which has led to bans in many public indoor places. Annice Lyn

On my last day in George Town, after abstaining from durian for a few days, I strayed away from the Macalister Road stalls in search of a vendor Gasik recommended named Teh Boon Teik, or Fatty. I still hadn’t learned to select a truly amazing durian—that’s a next-level skill—but I had, at last and at least, learned a bit about what I wanted. “Bitter,” I said. “Some alcohol taste. Numbing if you have it. Old tree. Intense taste.” Teik nodded. He probed each durian from the small group he’d selected for me by sticking his knife blade into the fruit, then sniffing it when it came out slick with durian pulp. “This one,” he said, with conviction, and sliced open a small Capri variety. I took a bite. I tasted cacao, cream, maybe mezcal. It was alive. It was rotting. It was wonderful. I thought back to what Gasik had told me about the singular moment of each great durian. There will never be a durian like this again. That was why this moment—and this fruit—was so special.

Editors’ note, June 30, 2025: This article has been updated to correct an error in the timing of Lindsay Gasik’s work at Bao Sheng Durian Farm.

A Search for the World’s Best Durian, the Divisive Fruit That’s Prized—and Reviled

Key takeaways: What is the durian fruit?

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