What Is Medlar (Azgil)? The Fruit That Has to Blet Before You Can Eat It
Medlar (Mespilus germanica), called azgil in Persian and Azerbaijani, is a small russet-brown autumn fruit in the rose family — a cousin of the apple, pear and quince. It is the one fruit in the European and Persian larder that is inedible when ripe: picked hard in late October or November it is so astringent it is unpleasant, and it only becomes edible after a process called bletting, in which it softens and browns internally over two to four weeks. Bletted, it tastes like spiced apple sauce with dates and a little tartness, and the texture is a thick pulp you spoon or suck from the skin.
If you have just been handed one and are wondering whether it has gone off — it is supposed to look like that.
If you were looking for a medicine, you are on the wrong page. Azgil is also used as a brand name for prescription antibiotics sold in India, which is why a plain search for the word returns pharmacy listings alongside the fruit. We sell food, not medicine, and nothing on this page is about a drug — for anything to do with a prescription, ask a pharmacist or your doctor. Everything below is about the fruit.
Medlar at a Glance
| Botanical name | Mespilus germanica |
| Family | Rosaceae — same family as apple, pear, quince, hawthorn |
| Persian / Azerbaijani | azgil (ازگیل) |
| Harvest | Late October to November, after the first frosts |
| Eaten | Only after bletting — 2 to 4 weeks after picking |
| Taste when bletted | Spiced apple sauce, date, a little wine-like tartness |
| Texture | Soft brown pulp, spooned out; skin and the five large pips discarded |
| Not to be confused with | Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), the “Japanese medlar” |
Why You Cannot Eat a Medlar Straight Off the Tree
A medlar picked at full colour is rock-hard, mouth-drying and sour. The astringency comes from tannins, and the fruit stores its energy as starch rather than sugar — so there is very little sweetness to balance them.
Bletting fixes both problems at once. Left in a cool place after picking, the fruit undergoes a slow internal breakdown: the starch is converted to sugar, the tannins degrade, the flesh goes from white and firm to brown and custard-soft, and the skin wrinkles. It looks exactly like spoilage and it is not — a bletted medlar smells sweet and faintly of apple and wine, while a genuinely rotten one smells sour and grows mould at the stem.
This is why the medlar was a winter fruit in medieval Europe and remains one in northern Iran: it is picked at the end of the season and eaten weeks later, indoors, once the frosts have done their work.
The trade-off nobody mentions
Bletting is not purely a gain. A study in Molecules tracking medlar across five ripening stages found that ascorbic acid (vitamin C), total phenolic content and total antioxidant activity all decreased significantly as ripeness advanced — along with potassium, calcium and magnesium. So the fruit becomes far more pleasant to eat and simultaneously less nutrient-dense than it was at the hard, inedible stage. If you are eating medlar for the flavour, blet it fully. There is no version of this fruit that is both delicious and at peak vitamin C.
Four Ways to Blet a Medlar, and What Each One Costs You
Most guides say “leave them in a cool place” and stop there. The method genuinely changes the result, and it has been measured: a 2023 study in Foods compared medlars ripened by hoarfrost, freezing, cellar storage and gentle heat.
| Method | How | What the research found |
|---|---|---|
| Let the frosts do it (traditional) | Leave fruit on the tree through two or three hard frosts, then pick | Composition only minimally altered versus technologically ripe fruit — the fruit becomes edible while its chemistry stays close to intact. The best method if you have the tree. |
| Freeze | Pick hard, freeze, then thaw | Retained the highest glucose of any treatment (204.38 g/kg dry weight). The quickest reliable route, and the sweetest result. |
| Cellar or straw | Single layer, stem up, cool and dark, 2 to 4 weeks | Works, but sugar declines — around 10% less fructose after 25 days at 8°C. Check every few days and eat them as they turn. |
| Gentle heat — do not | Warming at about 60°C to speed things up | Backfires. Heat blocked polyphenol oxidase, the enzyme that breaks tannins down, so total phenolics rose about 40% — including the flavanols responsible for astringency. Heating makes a medlar more mouth-puckering, not less. |
The practical takeaway: cold ripens a medlar, warmth does not. If you are impatient, use the freezer, not the oven or a warm windowsill.
What Does a Medlar Taste Like?
A fully bletted medlar tastes like spiced apple sauce with dates — sweet but not sugary, with a brown-sugar and cinnamon warmth, a slight graininess like an overripe pear, and a wine-like acidity at the finish. Some people get a note of tamarind or of very ripe persimmon.
Underblet, it is astringent and chalky and nobody enjoys it, which is the single commonest reason people try medlar once and dismiss it. Overblet, it turns alcoholic and flat. The window is a few days wide and worth catching.
Medlar Is Not Loquat — and the Names Cause Real Confusion
This trips up almost everyone, including sellers. Medlar is Mespilus germanica: autumn, russet-brown, must be bletted. Loquat is Eriobotrya japonica: a different genus, ripening in spring and early summer, orange-yellow, eaten firm and fresh straight from the tree, never bletted. Loquat is widely marketed as “Japanese medlar,” which is where the mess starts.
In Persian, azgil is used loosely for both fruits depending on the region, so an Iranian recipe calling for azgil may mean either. The Romance-language names have drifted the same way: Spanish níspero and Italian nespola originally meant medlar and in modern everyday use usually mean loquat.
| Language | Name | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Persian | azgil — ازگیل | Also used colloquially for loquat |
| Azerbaijani | ezgil | |
| Turkish | muşmula, döngel | Yeni dünya is loquat, not medlar |
| French | nèfle | Medlar proper; the tree is néflier |
| Italian | nespola | Now usually means loquat |
| Spanish | níspero | Now usually means loquat |
| German | Mispel |
Do Medlars Grow in the United States?
Yes, but barely anyone grows them commercially. The tree is hardy, self-fertile, small and genuinely easy to grow — University of Missouri extension describes it as an obscure holiday fruit rather than a difficult one, and the Royal Horticultural Society rates it as low-maintenance and reliable in a domestic garden. You will find medlar trees in home orchards, botanical gardens and heritage-fruit collections across the US, sold by specialist nurseries as named varieties such as Breda Giant, Royal, Nottingham and Sultan.
What you will almost never find is fresh medlar fruit for sale. It ripens in a narrow late-autumn window, it has to be shipped hard and then bletted by the buyer, and it looks like it has gone bad on the shelf — a combination no supermarket produce buyer wants. That is why searches for where to buy the fruit mostly turn up trees and seeds.
How to Use Medlar — and the Year-Round Form
Because the edible window is so short, almost every traditional medlar preparation is a preserve:
- Medlar jelly — the classic English use. The fruit is high in pectin, so it sets readily; strain the pulp and cook with sugar and lemon. Served with cheese and game.
- Medlar cheese or butter — the sieved pulp cooked down thick and set firm, sliced like membrillo.
- Torshi — in northern Iran, medlar goes into Persian pickles, where the astringency is an asset rather than a flaw.
- Rob — the fruit cooked down to a thick, tart concentrate and jarred. This is how azgil is kept through the year in Persian kitchens.
The last one is the practical answer to the seasonality problem. Medlar (Azgil) Paste is the fruit already picked, bletted, cooked and reduced — a sour paste for stews, marinades and dressings that keeps in the cupboard and needs no ripening window. It is not a substitute for eating a fresh bletted medlar with a spoon, and it is not pretending to be; it is the form that survives shipping and a calendar.
Medlar sits in a family of Persian fruit pastes that work the same way — quince is its nearest botanical relative and the mildest, cornelian cherry is the sharpest, and prunella (aloocheh) sits between them. The full rob guide covers how each one is used.
Disclosure: Goaldees makes and distributes the medlar paste linked above. The identification, bletting and naming sections are written to be useful whether or not you buy anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is azgil a fruit or a medicine?
Both words exist. Azgil is the Persian and Azerbaijani name for the medlar fruit, Mespilus germanica, which is what this page is about. It is separately used as a brand name for prescription antibiotics sold in India, which is why searching the word alone returns pharmacy listings. The two are unrelated, and questions about the medicine belong with a pharmacist or doctor.
What does a medlar fruit taste like?
Fully bletted, like spiced apple sauce with dates — sweet, warm with brown-sugar and cinnamon notes, slightly grainy, with a wine-like tartness at the end. Underblet it is astringent and chalky, which is why first impressions of medlar are often bad.
Is there another name for medlar fruit?
Many. It is azgil in Persian, ezgil in Azerbaijani, muşmula or döngel in Turkish, nèfle in French, Mispel in German, and nespola or níspero in Italian and Spanish — though those last two now usually refer to loquat instead. Its botanical name is Mespilus germanica.
What do the French call medlars?
Nèfle, and the tree is a néflier. The French idiom des nèfles! means “nothing doing” — a hint at how cheap and commonplace the fruit once was.
How do you eat medlar fruit?
Wait until it is fully bletted — soft, wrinkled and brown inside. Then either bite the base and suck the pulp out, or halve it and spoon the flesh away from the skin. Discard the skin and the five large pips. It is normally eaten on its own or with cheese, not cooked, once bletted.
Is a bletted medlar rotten?
No. Bletting is a controlled internal ripening in which starch converts to sugar and tannins break down, and brown, custard-soft flesh is the goal, not spoilage. A bletted medlar smells sweet and appley; a genuinely rotten one smells sour or has mould at the stem end.
Where can I buy medlar fruit?
Fresh medlar is very hard to buy, especially in the US — the season is a few weeks in late autumn and the fruit has to be bletted after purchase, so almost no retailer carries it. Searches usually turn up medlar trees and seeds from specialist nurseries instead. The year-round alternative is medlar in preserved form, as a jarred rob or paste.
Do medlars grow in the US?
Yes. The tree is hardy, small and self-fertile, and it is grown in home orchards and heritage collections across much of the country, with named varieties such as Breda Giant, Royal and Nottingham sold by specialist nurseries. It is simply not grown commercially for fruit.
Is medlar the same as loquat?
No. Medlar is Mespilus germanica — autumn, brown, must be bletted. Loquat is Eriobotrya japonica — spring and summer, orange, eaten firm and fresh. Loquat is often sold as “Japanese medlar,” and in Persian azgil is used loosely for both, which is the source of most of the confusion.
How long does it take to blet a medlar?
Two to four weeks in a cool, dark place after picking. Freezing and thawing is much faster and, according to a 2023 study in Foods, retains the most glucose. Warming the fruit does not speed bletting up — it blocks the enzyme that breaks down the tannins and makes the fruit more astringent.
What is rob-e azgil?
Medlar cooked down to a thick, tart concentrate and jarred — the Persian way of keeping azgil beyond its short season. It is used as a souring agent in stews, marinades and dressings rather than eaten as fruit.
Sources
- Changes in the Fruit Quality Parameters of Medlar Fruit (Mespilus germanica L.) after Heat Treatment, Storage, Freezing or Hoarfrost — Foods, 2023. The four bletting methods compared: hoarfrost leaves composition minimally altered, freezing retains the highest glucose (204.38 g/kg DW), cellar storage loses roughly 10% of fructose over 25 days at 8°C, and heating at 60°C blocks polyphenol oxidase and raises phenolics about 40%.
- Effect of Five Different Stages of Ripening on Chemical Compounds in Medlar (Mespilus germanica L.) — Molecules, 2011. Ascorbic acid, total phenolic content and total antioxidant activity all decline significantly as the fruit ripens toward edibility.
- How to grow medlars — Royal Horticultural Society. Harvest timing, bletting, and the tree’s low-maintenance habit.
- Medlar — An Obscure Holiday Fruit — University of Missouri Integrated Pest Management. Growing medlar in the United States.
- Mespilus germanica and Eriobotrya japonica — botanical identity and the medlar/loquat naming overlap.
This article is general food and horticultural information, not medical or nutritional advice.
Shop Persian Fruit Pastes
Medlar and its nearest relatives in jarred rob form — from Goaldees (also searched as Goldis), shipped nationwide across the US.
