Taking Inventory: Chorus Fruit

The End is one of the least-trodden parts of Minecraft’s blocky landscapes. That’s because it’s hard to get there – you need loads of ender pearls and blaze powder to find the strongholds that house the portals to travel there, let alone active the portals. But when you do arrive, and you get through that whole business of dealing with the dragon that doesn’t want you to visit, then you can get down to what’s really important. Finding our item of the week – chorus fruit.

The Chorus fruit was added to Minecraft in the Combat Update in February 2016. As well as revamping combat, this update beefed up The End – adding a new boss fight sequence with the Ender Dragon, a bunch of new End islands, purpur blocks, shulkers, and elytra.

It’s not too tricky to find Chorus fruit once you’re in The End, have killed the Ender Dragon, and made your way to its outer islands. The trees are scattered across these islands, and a single tree will usually drop quite a lot of fruit.

Once you’ve got a lot of fruit there are a couple of things you can do with it. The first is to eat it. Chorus fruit restores four hunger, but there’s a chance you’ll be teleported in the process – to a random nearby location. Not really surprising, given that they’re the favourite food of the Endermen. The second is to craft it. Chorus fruit can be smelted into popped chorus fruit, which is inedible but can be crafted into purpur blocks and End rods.

Oh, and let’s deal with the elephant in the room. “Chorus” fruit? That’s a weird name for something. Well, according to Jeb, the original idea was that chorus trees would make a soft sound when they grew. Then, when you were standing in the middle of lots of trees, they’d all sing together. Unfortunately, this didn’t make it to the final release.

We don’t have chorus fruit in the real world, but we do have something that seems pretty similar. It’s called the pitaya. It has leathery reddish-purple skin, spikes on the outside, and grows on large, branching cacti plants. 

But the clearest connection of all between the chorus fruit (which grows in the domain of the Ender Dragon) and the pitaya (which comes from South America) is that the latter is popularly known as “dragon fruit”.

Dragon fruit taste a bit like raspberries, with the texture of a kiwi - thanks to its black, crunchy seeds. They come in several varieties, some more sour than others, and normally weigh a little under half a kilo. They’re very nutritious – containing loads of vitamin C, calcium, potassium and fibre.

The plants flower three to six times per year, and those flowers are nocturnal, relying on bats and moths for fertilisation. That’s pretty much a perfect fit for the End – a dimension where it’s constant twilight. 

My top tip for navigating the islands of the End? Keep a stash of chorus fruit handy at all times. There’s not much else to eat out there...