As a feature of the holiday table spread, at a backyard cricket competition or as a sweet treat for a beach day, fresh fruit doesn't fail to hit the spot.
Until it does, that is.
The experience of biting into a cherry or taking a chunk out of a watermelon piece can be soured when the fruit doesn't quite taste right.
But fruit experts are here to help, with tips and tricks for picking the best fruit off supermarket shelves.
Cherries and stone fruit
Wet weather has damaged stone fruit in key growing regions in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
"It's been a very difficult time for stone fruit growers and cherry growers over the last few months" the Managing Director of Reid Fruits in Tasmania, Tim Reid, said.
"But ... there's going to be a lot of beautiful fruit coming onto the market."
Mr Reid said the skin and the stem were the best indicators of cherry freshness.
"You need to look for shiny skin and ideally the stem on the cherry is green, that is the main demonstration of freshness," he said.
With a hotter than average summer predicted, it will be harder to keep cherries fresh, but Mr Reid said there was an easy solution.
"If you buy good quality cherries and you seal them in a container, put them in the bottom of your fridge and they'll keep really well for a couple of weeks," he said.
"When you're about to eat them, get them out and let them warm up to room temperature. That will bring the full flavour out."
Stone fruit is landing on your bench top from a range of growing regions in Australia.
The top tip from Larry Griffin, the Townsville-based manager for fruit and vegetable wholesaler Simon George and Sons, is that plums are eating best this summer.
Nectarines, plums, apricots and peaches have the same picking tips.
"You want something that smells beautiful, not too blemished and has a little bit of give," Mr Griffin said.
"Little tiny spots are OK on the fruit as they can be sugar spots which mean the fruit is going to be really sweet as it ripens."
Another top tip from Mr Griffin is to know the difference between yellow and white nectarines.
"The white [nectarine] does have a little bit of a sweeter, slightly less acidic flavour to it, and they cut and present so well on dishes," he said.
Tropical treats
From the north, Australians will be munching into some beloved tropical treats such as lychees, mangoes, pineapple, and watermelon.
Lychees should be firm and not soft with a good "blush" in the fruit.
"Lychees lose the green out of them and they become sort of a bright, vibrant red colour," the Produce Manager at Lamberts Produce Townsville, Leigh Spence, said.
"That's when they're ripe [and] ready to peel.
"They will always have a little bit of greenery around the stem."
From the side of the road in Gumlu, a small town in the Whitsundays region, Wayne Donnelly operates a small farm and roadside produce business.
Travellers have been reaching for the watermelons and pineapples, which are perfect for eating at this time of year.
"For watermelons, you want a filled-out piece of fruit with a round shape and a light colour underneath where it has been sitting on the ground," Mr Donnelly said.
"Pick it up and tap it, a low-pitch thud means it is overripe and a high-pitch thud means it is perfect."
For pineapples, there are a few tricks of the trade shoppers can try out.
"When it is yellow in the eyes of fruit, it means it is ready to eat," Mr Donelly said.
"Pull the leaves off the top, if they pull out easy it means the pineapple is ready to eat."
Fruit platters could be costly
A glut of mangoes hitting the market has brought prices down.
But for other fruits, consumers should expect to fork out more money this summer than in previous years, wholesalers and grocers warn.
Despite rain across the entire eastern seaboard, fresh fruit will still make it onto supermarket shelves.
"Australia does a great job at interconnecting the states so you will be able to source the product, it will be beautiful fruit, but you will pay a little bit more for it this year," Mr Griffin said.
