Select guavas according to their color. If the guava is ripe, its skin will gradually change from a bright green color to a very soft yellowish green. There are also some guavas that ripen to a white or yellow color. If you come across a pink-colored guava, it is a better guava and it is very tasty.

Lava, myrtle tree, up to 13 meters high, bark smooth, gray, flaky peeling, shoots angular, hairy. Leaf blade leathery, oblong to elliptic, face slightly rough, hairy below, lateral veins often sunken, reticulate veins conspicuous, petiole 5 mm long. Flowers solitary or 2-3 in cymes, calyx tube campanulate, hairy, calyx cap irregularly fissured, petals white; stamens 6-9 mm long, ovary inferior, united with calyx, style as long as stamens. Berry spherical, ovoid or pyriform, with persistent sepals at the tip, flesh white and yellow, placenta plump, fleshy, light red.

Native to South America. Cultivated throughout South China, commonly escaped as a wild species, as far north as the Anning River valley in SW Sichuan, on wasteland or low hills. Fruit for food, leaves contain volatile oil and tannin. For medicinal use, have diarrhea, stop bleeding, stomach and other effects, the leaves are boiled to remove the tannin, dried for tea, taste sweet, have a heat-clearing effect.