Persimmon trees, or 'kaki' as they are called here, are a feature of the autumn landscape anywhere in Japan, and nowhere more so than in Saga, around where I live. They are a beautiful sight in autumn, after the red-tinged leaves have fallen, leaving the bright orange fruit standing out against the twisted, black branches.
There
are two major types of kaki fruit; a flat, bulbous one that is good for
eating fresh, and a smaller, rounder variety, pointed at the bottom.
This rounder fruit is too astringent to eat fresh, and is mainly used
for drying.
The weather in Japan at the end of autumn, and early winter, is perfect for drying kaki. There is very little rainfall, and the air is cool and crisp, and incredibly dry. Laundry dries outside in the cold air in no time at all, and human skin responds very poorly to the early winter conditions, unless you apply lavish amounts of skin cream, but kaki farmers, and ordinary housewives, find the weather perfect for making dried fruit.
The kaki are cut off the tree ripe, and the family sit around
peeling them, and stringing them by the stems into long ropes of bright
orange, glowing, glistening fruit. Then they are hung outside in drying
sheds (by the farmers) or under the eaves of the house (by families).
The dry air goes to work on the fruit pretty rapidly, and the lack of
moisture, and the cold, prevent any unsavory mould from forming. I had
a friend try this in Melbourne, Australia. The fruit was good, but the
humidity and occasional autumn daytime heat turned them into strings of
green fur in no time at all.
As you drive around Saga you see drying kaki in various stages of
readiness, looking like Christmas decorations hanging on the houses.
They dry with 
a
lovely, white sugary coating, and remain soft and jelly-like in the
centre. I much prefer dried kaki to eating them fresh, which I find
tasteless. They are usually ready toward the end of December, and are
displayed as part of the New Year decoration, and consumed as part of
the New Year celebration meal, or osechi-ryoori.
RK
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