Kokam is a tree with a dense canopy of green leaves and red-tinged tender emerging leaves.

The flowers are fleshy, dark pink, solitary or in spreading cluster.

The kokam fruit has 6 to 8 seeds, and the pulp is juicy and delicious in taste and odour. The tender fruit is green in color, and changes to a beautiful purple color as it ripens.

An average kokam tree bears hundreds of fruits during summer. The fruits are plucked when they are ripe.

The tree is a source of kokam butter which is used in cosmetics and confectionary.

The outer cover of the fruit is dried in the sun to get 'kokam'. It is used as a souring agent, sometimes as an alternative to tamarind in curries and other dishes from South India.

The fresh fruit is preserved with sugar and bottled for sale as a beverage called Kokam Sarbat. The extract of the fruit is called aagul in Marathi and Konkani.

It is indigenous to the Western Ghats region of India, along the western coast, which means that it occurs naturally in this region, making it very important to the ecosystem.

The kokam variety from the Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts has received the GI (Geographical Indication) tag.