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Fruit from Thailand

Buay-dorng (brine-pickled Japanese apricot)บ๊วยดอง

Mature ume (Japanese apricot) are boiled for 5 minutes, cooled in their water and drained, then kept under a boiled and cooled 10 % salt brine in a closed jar in the shade for a month. The fruit turns brown, salty and sour, and the JIRCAS card gives a storage life of 4 months.

Fully documentedFruit30 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedJIRCAS's home-industry method, with no batch size.
Mature Japanese apricots (buay, Prunus mume)[jircas]
Brine of 10 % w/v salt, boiled, strained and cooled[jircas]

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 days

Start
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What changes: Ripe ume are boiled for 5 minutes and cooled in their cooking water

Step 1 of 4
Wash and boil the fruit
Time
5 min
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Mature ume (Japanese apricot) are boiled for 5 minutes, cooled in their water and drained, then kept under a boiled and cooled 10 % salt brine in a closed jar in the shade for a month. The fruit turns brown, salty and sour, and the JIRCAS card gives a storage life of 4 months. Made in 4 steps over 30 days. The longest step, close and ferment in the shade, takes 30 days (JIRCAS 2026). Salt is 10 % (JIRCAS 2026).

Key numbers
Main step30 daysReported[jircas]Close and ferment in the shade
Salt10 %Reported[jircas]Drain into a jar and cover with brine

What makes this one different

Buay-dorng is boiled before brining and stays in its brine; it is not sun-dried like umeboshi.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Salted and sun-dried buayRipe buay soaked overnight to remove bitterness, layered with salt in a sealed jar for about a week, given salted red shiso, pickled about a month more and sun-dried for 4–5 sunny days (Makkhun et al., citing Topp et al. 2007) [makkhun2021].

Safety

Thailand's community standard for packaged pickled fruit (whole fruit kept in brine or another salted liquid) requires pH 3.5 or below, total microbes at most 1 × 10^4 per gram, no Staphylococcus aureus in 0.1 g, E. coli below 3 per gram (MPN) and yeasts and moulds at most 100 per gram. It bans synthetic colours, borax and non-sugar sweeteners. The JIRCAS card gives no pH or safety test for the home pickle.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli (the pickled-fruit standard sets limits for both; the JIRCAS card lists no microbes for this pickle).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Makkhun et al. (2021) write that Thailand's ume trees were brought from Taiwan and Japan and planted in the north, around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. The Royal Project selected good varieties and promoted highland planting, and processors in Chiang Rai buy fresh ume to make salted pickled ume and semi-dried ume for sale at home and abroad [makkhun2021].

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [jircas] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Buay-dorng card, read 2026-10-23. Microbe lists mostly cite The traditional fermented foods of Thailand (ASEAN, 1995).gov
  2. [makkhun2021] Makkhun S., Potisate Y., Leaungthitikanchana S. 2021, Effect of fresh plum substitution with pickled plum on the properties of umeshu product, RMUTSV Research Journal 13(3):732–741 (in Thai)paper
  3. [tcps160] Thai Industrial Standards Institute 2003, Thai Community Product Standard มผช.160/2546, Pickled fruit (phonlamai dong) (copy on archive.org)spec