KIWIFRUIT FROM NEW ZEALAND?

How many of you didn't know that the kiwifruit is actually not from New Zealand? Raise your hands and let me count! I don't!

I was shocked when my China friends gave me preserved slices of kiwifruit to eat after going home for holiday. I told them then that there is no way kiwifruit can be from elsewhere on the planet. Well, how so wrong I am! They told me it was originated from China but did not have much success back home. It was exported later and New Zealand made it famous! It sounds like the story of rubber, cocoa, coffee, tea or pepper.

An excerpt from Wikipedia, the fountain of knowledge, will give a clearer picture:
The kiwifruit (or kiwi) is the edible berry of a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia. The Actinidia is native to Shaanxi, China.

The most common cultivars of kiwifruit are oval, about the size of a large hen's egg (5–8 cm / 2–3 in long and 4.5–5.5 cm / 1¾–2 in diameter). It has a fibrous, dull green-brown skin and bright green or golden flesh with rows of small, black, edible seeds. The fruit has a soft texture and a unique flavour, and today is a commercial crop in several countries.

Originally known as the Chinese Gooseberry, the fruit was renamed for export marketing reasons in the 1950s; briefly to melonette, and then to kiwifruit. This latter name comes from the kiwi — a flightless bird and New Zealand's national symbol.

It is not uncommon (outside New Zealand and Australia) for the fruit to be referred to simply as "kiwi".