17 Types of Papaya With Enjoyable Flavor Variations

There are many types of papaya and all of these varieties can be exceptionally good. However, some are healthier than others and they even have different tastes, making them great in different types of recipes.

Papaya is a tropical fruit that grows naturally in the Caribbean and Florida. It's also a tropical native fruit to Mexico that's high in vitamins and low in calories. A lot of people love it, but a few have the information to find and eat the different types of papaya.

17 Types of Papaya

That is why we're here to offer our expertise on the wide varieties of papayas so that you can appreciate their flavors as well as their optimum health benefits. Let's check out some types of the Carica papaya plant.

Hawaiian Sunrise Papaya

This papaya is native to Hawaii and is also known as the Solo Sunrise Papaya or Strawberry papaya.

Sunrise papaya is a tropical treat that's as smooth on the peel as on your tongue. When ripening, the peel takes on a golden orange hue. Besides, it's a unique fruit with salmon pink flesh and a sweet flavor that's a mix of melon and berries.

This is a delicious, sweet fruit that has a shallower oblong seed cavity than other species of papayas. In fact, this fruit is rich in vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin K, carotene, and many other nutrients. This fruit is also valuable because it contains an enzyme called papain that helps digestion.

You can eat Hawaiian Sunrise Papayas on their own or use them in various recipes, and they are also great for making juice or smoothies.

Mexican Papaya (Red & Yellow)

Mexican papayas come in wide varieties. Some are larger than others, and some have more seeds than others—so you can find one that suits your taste buds perfectly!

The skin of ripe Mexican papaya is orange, bright yellow, or pale green. This is one of the most popular varieties in the world, and It's easy to understand why: its flesh is sweet and golden, with a soft, thick texture ideal for slicing or eating by hand.

Well, the red ones have rose-colored flesh that tastes delicious. On the other hand, the yellow ones are considerably sweeter than the red ones and contain yellow flesh, almost like they're types of cantaloupe.

This fruit is known for its large size, weighing up to 10 pounds. They're oval-shaped but sometimes more pyriform and usually around 6-12 inches long.

These types of papaya are high in vitamin C, which reduces inflammation and boosts the immune system. It also provides many essential minerals and vitamins that help to protect bone and maintain overall health.

Hawaiian Sunset Papaya

Hawaiian Sunset is a dwarf version of its cousin Sunrise, a comparatively small and firm papaya. Additionally, the skin turns a lovely red-orange hue when the Hawaiian Sunset Papaya is ripe.

With its salmon pink flesh and star-shaped seed cavity, you'll be able to enjoy these fruits in any context—from slicing them up for your next meal to serving them as an appetizer at your next party.

Both Sunset and Sunrise papayas last pretty much for the same duration, although Sunset fruits typically stay 2-4 days longer.

Kapoho Papaya

The Kapoho papaya is grown in the Puna district of Hawaii, where 90% of the state's total papaya production occurs. The outer layer of these fruits has a bright green-and-yellow pattern like small types of watermelon, and their inside flesh is just as lovely, which is the main reason for its popularity.

If you are looking to add more vitamins C, A, and E to your diet, try Kapoho Papaya. This variety is rich in these vitamins, and they are so delicious that it is best to eat them while they are still in their prime.

This is a beautiful, unique fruit that comes with hard pulp and has a form similar to a pear, weighing up to 22 ounces.

Red Lady Papaya

This variety is resistant to major diseases and produces a large number of fruits on each plant, allowing you to harvest many at once.

In fact, these papaya types are a sweet, delicious fruit that can be grown in larger types of planters. The fruit often weighs about 2 pounds and usually comes in at around 3-5 pounds.

The fruits are oblong and turn bright yellow when they ripen. The inner cavity of the red lady papaya is a place of wonder, where nature has hidden black seeds so small and round that you might think they were rocks.

Red Lady Papaya varieties are a tropical fruit with vibrant salmon pink flesh and a melon-like flavor. It has a sweet aroma that's sure to delight your senses.

Kamiya Papaya

Kamiya is a dwarf type of papaya that the University of Hawaii developed. This papaya is the product of a plant virus named "ringspot" that endangered the sustainability of papayas all over the world. The Hawaii University produced this to resist the ringspot virus, or more specifically the rainbow papaya.

These types of papaya are a medium-sized fruit with orange flesh and greenish-yellow thin rind, depending on the variety. The flesh is soft, sweet, and juicy, revealing a delicate aroma. It's grown only on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

Guinea Gold Papaya

This Australian native derives its name directly from the gorgeous color of both its skin and interior. The Guinea gold papaya is a tropical fruit with a pear shape, delicate golden yellow skin, and meat.

It matures over a period of 15–18 months and can reach weights of more than 2-3 pounds. The fruit is slightly smaller than average but makes up for its flavor—it's sweet.

The best time to harvest Guinea Gold Papayas is when they're ripe: when the skin turns yellow and the fruit feels soft to the touch.

Tainung Papaya

Tainung Papaya is a variety of papaya that was initially developed in Taiwan. It is also known as Formosa papaya. It is a hybrid of the Sunrise papaya that has gained popularity in most tropical places worldwide.

It has pink-red meat with a delicious and juicy flavor, and when it ripens, its green rind turns yellow. Additionally, it has a little melon flavor, though they aren't strict types of melons at all.

The Tainung papaya is known for its distinctive color, which comes from pigments such as lycopene and carotenoids.

What sets this fruit apart is its hard black seeds—they have a slightly peppery taste. You can ripen Tainung Papaya at room temperature by putting them in a paper bag and waiting 4-5 days. Also, you can store your papayas in the fridge for up to two days.

This papaya has an impressive amount of vitamins, digestive enzymes, and minerals. But it also contains fiber and carbohydrates—making it an excellent option for anyone who wants to eat healthily.

Waimanalo Papaya

The Waimanalo Papaya, a Hawaiian varietal, has a few notable qualities. First, it's one of the smallest types of papayas out there. Secondly, it can produce fruits within 9 to 10 months, making it a fast-growing plant.

It's grown in the hills of Oahu, Hawaii, and is papaya with a short, round neck and round ends weighing between 16 to 39 ounces.

These papayas are excellent sources of vitamin C. They have rich orange-yellow flesh that is exceptionally tasty and creamy, making them ideal for your next tropical salad or smoothie!

Peterson Papaya

Another one of the varieties of papaya hailing from Australia, the Peterson Papaya's most obvious characteristic is its green color on the outside. It doesn't have some wildly different appearance on the outside, but when you slice into it you'll notice a difference.

The interior flesh of these types of papaya have a much deeper and darker shade of orange to it than you may be accustomed to, closer to types of oranges in color than any other papaya. But as soon as you taste it you'll find that it's possibly the sweetest papaya variety available, and has the most pleasant aroma, too.

Hortus Gold Papaya

The Hortus Gold papaya is an exotic fruit that originated in South Africa. It's a cloned cultivar, meaning that it was genetically modified to have disease resistance and the highest sugar content.

The Hortus Gold papaya is a delicious, sweet-tasting fruit with golden-yellow skin. It's also known as the "Honey Gold" for its delightful flavor and color.

This type of papaya is one of the widest varieties of papayas available, with up to 4 pounds of flesh per fruit. When it's ripe, it tends to become mushy, which makes it hard to eat.

Sunnybank Papaya

Sunnybank Papaya is a dioecious variety of papaya cultivated in Western Australia after trials with nine other seedlings. It's an old variety with a long history that has been cultivated for centuries.

This is a tiny fruit that weighs around 1 pound on average. And its actual juicy taste lies under the golden flesh, which can be endeavored after you extract the fruit.

Oak Leaved Papaya

The Oak Leaved Papaya types are a cultivar from South America that resembles acorn squash more than papaya, with its green and gold stripes. It's pretty unique and you'll always be able to identify it once you've seen it once.

When you cut into it, it may come as a shock that the inside has flesh just like any other papaya. You can enjoy the seeds and the sweet orange flesh just like normal.

Samba Papaya

The Samba Papaya is a newer cultivar with a much more pulpy flesh than other varieties. It takes on an oval shape as the fruit matures with an outer skin ranging in the yellow-to-green colors patterns. The flesh is a little darker of an orange than others and a bit more sweet to the taste.

It's said that the Samba papaya is more nutritious than other types. If un-sliced, it's also claimed that it will be just fine for consumption for up to two weeks at room temperature, but once you open it up you need to refrigerate it, where it can last for 5 days.

Bettina Papaya

The Bettina Papaya varieties are a cultivar that is propagated as a mix between the Queensland papaya strain from Australia and the Betty strain found in Florida. It has a more round shape than oval with a yellow-to-orange skin color.

This color signals that its ripe, and at this maturity level it should weight around 3 to 5 pounds. It's enjoyed for having a smaller number of seeds in the central cavity that you can either eat or scrape out. It's the "scrapers" that appreciate having to do less work.

Royal Star Papaya

Grown largely in south Texas, the Royal Star Papaya is a natural hybrid and not a cultivar, first discovered in Colima, Mexico in 2007. The cavity within the fruit takes on a much more obvious star shape than what you find in other papaya types, which is where the name comes from.

Farmers will harvest these while they're still green, giving them several weeks to finish ripening while being handled and shipped around. When it's ready to be eaten, the skin will turn to a more yellow color with patterns of orange and even red in it.

Maradol Papaya

Popular in Mexico and Central America, the Maradol Papaya has an elongated shape that still becomes fairly wide, providing a lot of flesh for your enjoyment. You can watch it go from green to yellow to orange as it ripens. The orange skin means it's time to eat it so it doesn't go to waste.

Once you peel it or slice in you'll discover a pink colored flesh that has a musky scent. The taste is what you'd expect, with a firm texture that still manages to feel soft. Bask in the aroma as you enjoy this healthy, big fruit that will weight between 3 and 5 pounds once mature.

Types of Papaya That Expand Your Appreciation

The papaya contains so much more than just fruit, proving that you can get everything you need from a plant. We certainly believe that it should be part of everyone's diet for that reason alone.

With such wide varieties and types of papaya, it can be challenging to know the best one for you. Once you know what to look for, the purchase becomes pleasurable and easy. Hopefully, you learned something from this list and are prepared to hit the store with confidence.

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