Bulana

It seems nobody has written about this tasty little fruit before... I don't know the English name, and when I searched for the Indonesian name I was told it is called bulana, even that was non-existent online... perhaps it is a local dialect.

The closest thing I found online was something called Duhat, which it could very well be, given the descriptions online.

Here is the tree (sorry, too far away for any kind of ID):

And the fruit:

Bulana are small, plum-like fruits that are about the size of a large olive... They're tasty - quite sweet, but with a sour edge.  But more than taste... bulana produces a unique textural feeling in the mouth as well which is hard to describe - it's like it sucks all the saliva from the mouth lining for a split second, producing a slightly numbing sensation, which is replaced by a sense that the entire tongue and inner mouth has been coated with a fine fur, and just as quickly, it's gone...  Although when ripe, you can eat them straight off the tree, I'm told that often the fruits don't get a chance to ripen on the branches - they're just too delicious slightly underripe with salt.  (This is also a common taste for eating under-ripe mangoes here as well).  On each occasion I've tried them, I've had a different sensation of taste... most recently I thought it tasted mildly akin to the nutmeg fruit I tried, with a hint of spice.... That was on Bunaken Island, where apprently they call them Anggur Bunaken (Bunaken Grapes)!

One thing to be careful of is the juice - it stains instantly; a purple splotch is a tel-tale sign that people have been eating bulana!

The website that I found referring to 'duhat' says another name for this fruit is the Java Plum, which makes me even more sure that we're talking about the same thing here... Syzgium cumini.  Actually... seeing the latin name makes me wonder if this is the fruit of cumin (if I remember the pit is approximately the right size and shape)... that would explain its 'spicey' taste, too...  and we are, afterall, only a hop-skip away from the "Spice Islands" of Maluku!