Harvested my first Virupakshi bunch. I harvested green after three or four fingers split. After hanging they began to turn yellow in a week.
I began to consume these bananas in earnest when they were all yellow and absolutely no green on the banana nor on the banana stem. Fingers were tasty, white and unbruised on the inside after the outside had blackened/browned quite a bit. Skin is paper thin at peak maturity. They were about 2/3 the size of a Namwa or slightly larger than a Manzano. On a sweetness scale with Namwa being a 10, I estimate these were an 8. Sweet was the dominate taste but not as sweet and syrupy as a Namwa. No apple or fruit taste was present. The flesh was dense and white/cream color.
My wife took some to her office and everybody enjoyed them after being instructed that the skin color was not indicative of the fruit maturity. Everyone is always, "I like to eat bananas when they have some green on them". Not this one! Haha.
Its a good banana but its nothing super special like a Mysore or Pisang Klotek. Its similar in taste to a Namwa but both the number of fingers and size of the fingers is substantially smaller. The plant itself is not as robust and attractive as a Namwa. I think for the collector of plants that has a lot of space it might be a good one to get just to add to your collection but if space is limited I would not recommend this plant. In my opinon it appears less cold hardy than Namwa, Orinoco, Blue Java, and Raja Puri too.
Note: the cavendish in the photo below is medium size for that variety.
