Over the last few months, we have noticed a huge jump in shave ice flavor-related questions sent our way. One of the more common questions is “Are Lilikoi and passion fruit the same thing?” To get a solid answer to this question, we turn to the most logical source: actual shave ice store owners.

Yellow Passion Fruit, a.k.a. Passiflora edulis var. flavicarpa, is indeed the same thing as lilikoi.  Lilikoi, is the Hawaiian word for passionfruit and it is pronounced like combining the girl’s name Lilly with those big Japanese goldfish, Koi. Although yellow passionfruit is not an entirely distinct species from purple passion fruit, yellow passionfruit (the one known as lilikoi) is slightly larger in size, has yellow skin and has a bit more tart taste.

In most other ways, yellow passionfruit is pretty similar to the purple passion fruit. It’s a small roundish fruit that grows on a vine, has many seeds, and is used most often to make juice. Common names for the fruit include passionfruit (English), maracuya (Spanish), grenadile (French), maracuja’ (Portuguese), and lilikoi (Hawaiian).

It makes a deliciously tart juice, but the real magic happens when a feather-light mound of ice is doused with liliko‘i (usually nearly pure passionfruit juice, with a dash of cane sugar). In Hawaii, a lilikoi shave ice will often be “snowcapped” with sweetened condensed milk. The resulting ice dessert tastes like the fluffiest, most delicious cloud you’ve ever tasted. It has a perfect balance of tartness and sweetness and is one of the most popular flavors in Hawaii, since passionfruit grows easily in Hawaiis tropical climate.

Nowadays to make things super simple, you can also buy pre-made passion fruit shave ice syrups online. With this all you need is a shave ice machine and some ice and you can make delicious Hawaiian style passionfruit shave ice right at home.