Soursop (Annona muricata), known across the Spanish-speaking tropics as guanábana, is the large, dark-green, soft-spined fruit of a small evergreen tree in the custard-apple family and a close relative of the cherimoya. Beneath its prickly skin lies soft, white, fibrous, cotton-like flesh studded with hard black seeds, with a creamy sweet-tart flavour often likened to a blend of strawberry, pineapple and sour citrus. Too soft and sour to be a popular eat-out-of-hand fruit, it is consumed above all as juice, agua fresca, smoothies, nectar and ice cream throughout tropical America, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.