Black melons were a species of melon and gourd that flourished in the Jundland Wastes region of the desert planet Tatooine. These egg-shaped fruits possessed a distinctive cracked black exterior. Their interior contained either naturally produced water or a type of milk. While black melon milk was safe for both Tusken Raiders and humans to consume, Obi-Wan Kenobi once remarked on its unpleasant taste. Boba Fett also noted that the taste required acclimatization.
Within Tusken Raider culture, black melons held significance as a food source. During Kenobi's period of exile on Tatooine, he made an attempt to sell some during a Great Drought because citizens were dying due to a water shortage and much of the water they did possess was seized as water taxes for Jabba the Hutt.
One tribe of Tuskens compelled captured individuals to excavate the fruit, which at one point included the bounty hunter Boba Fett after he was discovered incapacitated near the Great Pit of Carkoon, along with a Rodian prisoner. When Fett tried to drink from a melon he located, a Tusken youngling prevented him, taking the melon and instead offering its contents to a massiff. Subsequently, they were attacked by a sand beast. Fett's slaying of the creature garnered the respect of the tribe's chief, who then presented Fett with a melon to drink.
Following Fett's rescue of Fennec Shand, he extended her a black melon, suggesting it would aid in her recovery. Tuskens expressed offense when Cobb Vanth declined to consume the milk from inside a black melon while camping with a group of them.
The initial appearance of black melons occurred in Star Wars (2015) 7, a Marvel comic book published in 2015 that was authored by Jason Aaron and visually rendered by Simone Bianchi.