Jay, I have small seedlings of both plants, not named varieties. You have me thinking, however, that I really need to be looking for named varieties, maybe grafted plants, if I want good tasty fruit.

That said, I would add that from the point of view of foliage and attractiveness, the carambola does not compare to the wax jambu. Whereas the carambola seedling is gangly and pale, the wax jambu is colored deeply, with dark green and reddish tones to the foliage. Maybe carambola will be an ugly duckling that matures to a beautiful plant, but right now, without fruit, I'd take the wax jambu. Now someone can come along and comment on the FRUIT.

SB

I have never tasted a wax jambu so I can't compare them. I do have experience with carambola. The fresh from the tree fruit I had was very good. It was juicy- almost like an orange. Nothing like the little wimpy dry things in the supermarkets up North. Hope this helps-
Gwenn

I haven't had Jambu either, hopefully someone has had both. I've tasted Fwang Tung, Kari and Sri Kembangan, which are quite good, and prolific producers. I understand B-10 is another good one to consider if you go that route. Of course, there's risk if you only get one or two opinions on that comparison, but its better than none.

Gary

Thanks guys. I pretty much figured a good variety picked from the tree would be much better than the ones I tried in the store. However, my wife mentioned she liked the jambus she had when growing up in Thailand. So, with that said, I went with this plant for now. Frankies said they had a few really good and sweet varieties. It's supposed to be a very quick grower. And like Stress mentioned above, it is a very attractive tree. I've got a carambola going from seed right now. I'll try and graft it with a good variety later. It'll be a nice experiment. Anyone ever attempt that?

The white jambus tend to be sweeter than the red varieties. Although there is one red variety called 'Black Pearl' that is supposedly very good. I've had good jambus before and could literally go through bags of them. I wish I had a good carambola but I haven't had one, the grocery store market ones are horrible and the only other home grown ones I had never ripened properly. They are supposedly very good though but I don't know if I could see myself going through a bag of them. Their both prolific fruiters.

You definitely made a good choide of having a Wax Jambu. Wax Jambu has very mild sweet taste with little acid. A very ripe carambola can be very sweet, but also it has a lot of acid taste. If you eat a bag of fresh carmabola, you probably will get a stomachache.