Macadamia nuts: Cracking idea

Do you know why macadamia nuts are so expensive? It is because it takes five to 12 years for a macadamia tree to produce nuts (a good tree will still be producing nuts 40 years on); and the shell is damned hard to crack – so hard that it will break domestic nutcrackers. The first commercial orchard of macadamia trees, which are native to Australia, was planted in the early 1880s in New South Wales. Australia is still the world’s largest producer of macadamias, accounting for more than 40 per cent of world exports. Other leading producers are South Africa and Hawaii.