Melon Emoji

A round green melon, typically depicting a honeydew. 🍈 is one of the quietest fruit emojis in the Unicode standard, rarely used compared to flashier siblings like 🍉 or 🍓. But it has two surprisingly rich lanes. First: Japan's luxury fruit gift culture, where premium melons like the Yubari King sell for up to $45,000 at auction and are given as status symbols during celebrations. Second: like 🍑 and 🍆, the round shape has given 🍈 a suggestive secondary meaning as a reference to breasts, though this usage is far less common than those more famous innuendo emojis.

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F348U+1F348 MELON.

🍈 has a few specific contexts.

Japanese luxury culture. This is where 🍈 punches above its weight. In Japan, premium melons are serious business. The Yubari King melon, grown exclusively in Hokkaido, has sold for $45,000 at auction. Top-grade specimens retail for $200+ at Tokyo supermarkets. Giving luxury fruit is an established Japanese custom called omiyage, and melons are the crown jewel. 🍈 in Japanese food content carries connotations of luxury and prestige that don't translate to Western audiences.

Suggestive use. The round shape has led to 🍈 being used as a body reference for breasts, especially when paired with suggestive emojis like 😏 or 🔥. This is much less common than 🍑 (butt) or 🍆 (phallic), but parental monitoring apps like Bark flag it.

Food and summer. Honeydew in fruit salads, cantaloupe at brunch, melon smoothies. The innocent meaning is the most common but generates the least attention.

Refreshment. 🍈 with 🧊 or 💧 signals cooling down on a hot day. Melon-flavored drinks and desserts are popular in Japanese and Korean cuisine.

Melons have been cultivated for at least 4,000 years. Seeds and wall paintings in Egyptian tombs confirm they were grown along the Nile. From there, they spread along the Silk Road to Iran, India, China, and Japan.

The cantaloupe gets its name from Cantalupo in Sabina, a town near Rome where the Pope's gardener cultivated the European variety in the 18th century. Columbus brought cantaloupe seeds to the Americas in 1494. The honeydew (called White Antibes in France) got its sweeter American name later.

But the most remarkable melon story is Japan's. In Japanese gift culture (omiyage), luxury fruit occupies a position that Westerners might compare to fine wine or jewelry. The Yubari King melon, a cross between two cantaloupe varieties grown exclusively in Hokkaido's volcanic soil, is the pinnacle. Inspectors tap each melon, listening for a specific deep sound, smelling for sweetness, and examining the rind's net pattern before awarding the Yubari label. A pair sold at auction for $45,000 in 2019. Even ordinary premium melons retail for $200+ at Tokyo department stores. They're given at weddings, during Obon, and as expressions of respect and prestige.

1. -2000Melon seeds found in Egyptian tombs confirm cultivation along the Nile at least 4,000 years ago.
2. 1494Columbus brings cantaloupe seeds to the Americas. The European cantaloupe was domesticated at Cantalupo in Sabina, Italy, by the Pope's gardener.
3. 1961Yubari King melon first cultivated in Hokkaido, Japan. A cross between two cantaloupe varieties, it becomes the world's most expensive fruit.↗
4. 2010Approved in Unicode 6.0 as U+1F348 MELON. Design varies by platform: honeydew on Apple/Google, more generic on others.

• •A pair of Yubari King melons sold for $45,000 at auction in 2019, making it the world's most expensive fruit. Even ordinary premium melons retail for $200+ at Tokyo department stores.
• •The cantaloupe is named after Cantalupo in Sabina, a town near Rome where the Pope's gardener domesticated the European variety in the 18th century.
• •Melon cultivation in Egypt dates back at least 4,000 years. Seeds and wall paintings found in ancient tombs confirm they were grown along the Nile.
• •Yubari King melon inspectors tap each fruit, listening for a specific deep sound, smelling for sweetness, and examining the rind's net pattern before awarding the Yubari label.
• •The Yubari King is a unique cross between two cantaloupe varieties that can only be produced in Hokkaido's volcanic soil. The specific growing conditions create the melon's famous sweetness and texture.
• •In Japan, melon-flavored everything is a staple: soda, ice cream, Kit-Kats, bread, candy. Melon soda (melon kurimu soda) with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is iconic.
• •Melons spread from Egypt to Central Asia via the Silk Road. Uzbekistan became famous for its melon varieties and traditions.
• •The word "muskmelon" (the North American term for cantaloupe) comes from the Persian "musk," referring to the fruit's distinctive aroma. Cut a ripe cantaloupe and you can smell why.
• •Japan's melonpan sweet bread is named for its cross-hatched cantaloupe-pattern crust, not its flavor. Traditional melonpan contains no melon at all. Some modern versions add melon cream just to complete the joke.
• •The Yubari King's distinctive netted rind isn't decorative. It's a natural pattern that forms as the melon grows faster than its skin can stretch, and graders use the pattern's symmetry to judge quality.
• •Cantaloupe, honeydew, casaba, canary, Galia, and Yubari are all the same species (Cucumis melo), just different cultivars. Watermelon is a completely unrelated genus, which is why 🍈 and 🍉 aren't siblings the way 🍊 and 🍋 are.
• •Korean Melona popsicles (1992) became a cultural icon, then a worldwide hit in Korean-American groceries. They're credited with popularizing Korean chamoe melon flavor internationally, 🍈 + 🍦 essentially.

• •Melonpan: The iconic Japanese sweet bread with a cantaloupe-like cross-hatched crust. Appears in countless anime, most famously in To Love-Ru and Shakugan no Shana, where Shana's melonpan obsession is a running joke.
• •Gallagher: The prop comedian spent decades smashing watermelons (not honeydews), but his act is why "smash a melon" still reads as comedy. His 1990s Comedy Central specials cemented it.
• •The Sentinelese / North Sentinel Island: Not a direct reference, but every explainer about Japan's $45K melons tends to reach for "the most expensive X on Earth" framing, and Yubari has held the fruit slot for over a decade.
• •"Melons" (vernacular, pre-internet): Used as a body reference in English slang since at least the 1950s. The 🍈 emoji sometimes carries that meaning online, though 🍑 and 🍆 dominate innuendo. Parental monitoring apps like Bark still flag it.
• •Kit-Kat Japan: Nestlé Japan has produced a Yubari Melon Kit-Kat as a regional exclusive, part of Japan's 400+ limited-edition Kit-Kat varieties.