ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Dried cherry

Dried cherries are cherries that have been taken from a tree and then made into a special kind of snack that you can eat.

First, a cherry is a small, round fruit that grows on a tree. It comes in different colors like red, yellow, or even dark purple. When cherries are ripe and ready to be eaten, they are very juicy and taste sweet.

But sometimes, people want to keep cherries for a longer time so they can eat them later. This is when they make dried cherries.

To make dried cherries, people start by carefully picking the cherries off the tree when they are nice and ripe. Then, they wash them to get rid of dirt or any bugs that may have crawled on them.

Next, they take out the stems and pits from the cherries. The stems are the little parts that stick out from the top of the cherry, and the pits are the hard seeds inside the cherry.

After removing the stems and pits, the cherries are put in a special machine or sometimes just laid out on big trays. This machine or trays are made to take out the water from the cherries.

Do you know how when you leave a wet towel out in the sun, it gets dry after some time? It's because the sunlight helps to take away the water from the towel. In a similar way, the machine or trays take away the water from the cherries, but not by using sunlight.

As the machine or trays slowly take out the water, the cherries become smaller and not as juicy. This happens because most of the water inside the cherry is being removed. The water is turning into vapor and going away.

Once the cherries are all dry, they are ready to eat! Dried cherries are not as soft or juicy as fresh cherries, but they have a sweet and slightly chewy taste. They are like a little snack that you can eat by yourself, put in your lunchbox, or even use in recipes to make yummy things like cookies or muffins.

And the best part is that because the water has been taken out, dried cherries can stay good to eat for a very long time. So, if you want to save some cherries for later, you can choose dried cherries!