The cashew is the strangest thing in your snack bowl. It grows on the outside of a fruit, not inside it. There is exactly one per fruit. Its shell is lined with a caustic oil that can burn skin. And every single kernel you have ever eaten was freed from that shell by a process no machine has fully replaced yet. Once you know how a cashew grows, the price of a good one makes complete sense. Here is the whole strange journey, from tree to the grades on our shelf.
The cashew apple and its one seed
Cashews grow on the cashew tree, native to Brazil and now grown across the tropics, including the west coast of Africa where our raw nuts begin. The tree produces a cashew apple, a soft, juicy, bell-shaped fruit. Hanging beneath each apple, on the outside, is a single kidney-shaped shell. Inside that shell is one cashew kernel.
That is the first surprise: one fruit, one nut. There is no pod of many cashews. Every kernel represents a whole fruit and a whole shell, which is the first reason cashews cost more than nuts that grow in clusters.
The caustic shell that makes it hard work
Between the shell and the kernel sits a layer of oil called CNSL, cashew nut shell liquid. It contains urushiol, the same irritant found in poison ivy, and it can blister bare skin. This is why you never see cashews sold in the shell like peanuts or pistachios: the shell is genuinely hazardous, and getting the kernel out safely is skilled, careful work.
This is also why a truly raw, straight-from-the-shell cashew is not safe to eat. The kernels are steamed or roasted during processing to neutralise the oil, which is what makes the “raw” cashews in shops safe. More on that in our raw vs roasted guide.
From shell to kernel: mostly by hand
Turning a raw cashew into the kernel you eat takes several careful steps, and the best of it is still done by hand:
- Drying and steaming the raw nuts to loosen the shell and tame the caustic oil.
- Shelling, cracking each shell to release the kernel whole. Machines break more kernels; skilled hands keep them intact, which is why hand-processed cashews yield more whole grades.
- Peeling the thin brown skin (the testa) off each kernel.
- Grading, sorting kernels by size into W180, W240, W320 and the rest. This is where the grade ladder is decided, and why only a small share of any harvest is large enough to grade as jumbo W180.
- Sorting and packing, removing broken and blemished kernels, then sealing the good ones fresh.
Every kilogram of finished cashews is hours of handling. That is the honest reason kaju costs what it does, and we walk through our own version of these steps on the how we make your cashews page.
What happens to the cashew apple?
Mostly, it is wasted, which is a small tragedy: the apple is edible, intensely juicy, and rich in vitamin C. In growing regions it is eaten fresh or made into juice, jam, and even feni, a Goan spirit. But it bruises within hours of picking and cannot survive shipping, so outside cashew-growing areas almost no one ever tastes it. The nut travels the world; the fruit rarely leaves the farm.
Why this makes good cashews worth it
Put it together: one nut per fruit, a hazardous shell, and skilled hand-processing at every step. A cashew is not a cheap commodity nut, it is a small feat of careful work. When you understand that, two things follow. A suspiciously cheap “whole cashew” almost always means the work was skipped somewhere, older crop, broken grades, rushed processing. And a properly graded, fresh, whole kernel, especially a jumbo W180, is worth what it costs. What a fair price is actually made of is in our cashew price guide.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the cashew nut grow on the plant?
On the outside of the cashew apple, hanging beneath the fruit inside a single kidney-shaped shell. One nut per fruit.
Is the cashew a nut or a seed?
Botanically it is a seed, the single seed of the cashew apple. Culinarily it is treated as a nut.
Why are cashews never sold in the shell?
The shell contains a caustic oil (CNSL, with urushiol) that can burn skin. Kernels must be extracted and heat-treated by processors before they are safe to handle and eat.
Can you eat the cashew fruit?
Yes. The cashew apple is edible, juicy, and high in vitamin C, eaten fresh or made into juice, jam and feni in growing regions. It spoils within hours of picking, so it rarely travels.
Why are cashews more expensive than other nuts?
One nut per fruit, a hazardous shell, and skilled hand-processing at every stage. Each kilogram of kernels represents hours of careful work.