To complete one of my sourcing goal, it was my mission to visit the production area for Korean Persimmon. I took a plane to Seoul and transit to Pusan. The next morning, I visited the pack house in Jinhae, which is about 2 hours drive from Pusan.
Buckets of persimmons are being packed. The operation is a rather small one, they only have 5 ladies packing the fruits, plus another 5 for boxing, QC, and stuffing. 
All these fruits are for me and the fruits are being checked randomly with my presence. 
Since the season just started, we are only loading 1 x 20ft. And this is the truck waiting outside. 
Later, we went to the growing area. It was my first time to see persimmons on trees. It was quite cute because the hill has persimmons growing everywhere. It is pretty hard to tell on this picture because it is too small. But literally, there were orange dots everywhere on this hill.
It is a joke that I have never really eaten persimmons in my life considering I have been in fruit business for 10 years. LOL... Since I am in the land of persimmon, the fruit taste fantastic. It taste like a blend of apples and pears with sweet honey taste. The host kept on feeding me persimmons, and I think I have like 4 big ones in the entire afternoon. 
This is Mr. Kim, my exporter. He is the same age as my dad and is my dad's old friend. This trip was valuable for both of us because it was his first time to visit the pack house in years, and my first time. We also met people from the government export department as well as the chairman of growers association. It was a eye opener for me to see how Korean conduct business. Everyone was very formal, warm and polite. I had a great time here in Jinhae!
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