Why do Taiwanese refer to canistels as peaches of the immortals (仙桃)?

Question

I read on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pouteria_campechiana:

The Taiwanese also call this fruit xiantao (仙桃), "peach of the immortals".

Why do Taiwanese refer to canistels as peaches of the immortals?

Answer 1

Wikipedia has an entire page entitled, Peaches of Immortality, where it gives an explanation to the term:

In Chinese mythology, Peaches of Immortality (Chinese: 仙桃; pinyin: xiāntáo; Cantonese Yale: sīn tòuh or Chinese: 蟠桃; pinyin: pántáo; Cantonese Yale: pùhn tòuh) are consumed by the immortals due to their mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who eat them.

It then goes on to give some further details:

Peaches symbolizing immortality (or the wish for a long and healthy life) are a common symbol in Chinese art, appearing in depictions or descriptions in a number of fables, paintings, and other forms of art, often in association with thematically similar iconography, such as certain deities or immortals or other symbols of longevity, such as deer or cranes.

Answer 2

It is just a name, whoever named this fruit deemed it mythically good.

Put exaggerated words in commercial goods' names is a common practice. There's a Toronto car repairman nicknamed himself 車神 (god of cars) to brag about his godly car repairing skill, you can't take names like these literally

The funny thing is, just like 地瓜 (sweet potato) is not a 瓜 (melon), canistel fruit (aka. eggfruit) is not a peach. It is a fruit imported from South America. Because it looked like a peach, to tell it apart from the real peach (桃子), they gave it a catchy name 仙桃 (celestial peach).

canistel/eggfruit

peach

The 仙桃 (canistel/eggfruit) we referring to here is not the 仙桃 (Peaches of Immortality) in Chinese myth