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Japanese tangerine tree6/30/2023 ![]() ![]() In other words, they let the fruit sit around for a few weeks, as this reduces the acidity. I have read that some people let Shiranui fruit “cure” for a while after harvesting. It saddened me to think that someone would buy this fruit and then think he had experienced the variety’s potential. I didn’t even finish the store-bought Sumo. The flavor was sweet but insipid, and the texture was flimsy.īy comparison, my Shiranui had more complexity of flavor and the flesh burst as I chewed it. They looked beat up, with browning here and there on the peels, and the creasing in the peels suggested they had been off the tree for a long time. The Sumos in the store were not attractive on the outside. Homegrown Shiranui, store Shiranui (“Sumo”). I hadn’t eaten another store-bought Shiranui until last week, when I decided to give one a try in order to compare it to my homegrown fruit. It was good, good enough to encourage me to grow the variety myself. The first Shiranui I ate some years back was from a grocery store and branded Sumo. Homegrown Shiranui fruit compared to store-bought Sumos To put the Shiranui harvest season in context, in my yard the Shiranuis taste good after the Satsuma and Kishu mandarins but slightly before Gold Nugget and Pixie mandarins. I prefer to eat them around late February into March. I’ve tasted more than 1,000 varieties of citrus, and to me the Dekopon is the most delicious.”įrom my tree in San Diego County, Shiranui fruit begin tasting good in late January and they become too sweet sometime in April. Think of a huge mandarin, easy to peel and seedless, with firm flesh that melts in the mouth, an intense sweetness balanced by refreshing acidity, and a complex, lingering mandarin orange aroma. In this mandarin, some have found the promised land.ĭavid Karp: “I still remember the first time I tasted the legendary fruit the Dekopon. Large, firm and juicy, seedless segments of Shiranui. Early in the season, I taste a hint of grapefruit in my Shiranuis whereas later in the season they become intensely sweet. Inside, the segments are seedless, the juice vesicles are large and crisp, and the flavor is rich. The bump on top is big enough to be a handle sometimes. Most (not all) Shiranuis have a protrusion at the top, which comes in handy at eating time because it can be popped off to start the peeling. Mandarins, from left to right: USDA 88-2 (Superna), Pixie, Gold Nugget, Shiranui.īut the most remarkable characteristic of a Shiranui fruit is its neck. In size, Shiranuis are between a typical mandarin and a typical orange. They are said to come from a cross between a Ponkan mandarin (specifically, Nakano number 3) and Kiyomi tangor a tangor is a “tang-or”, a tangerine (mandarin) crossed with an orange. Shiranui fruit are big for mandarins, but they’re not true mandarins. (The Sumo brand is still owned by Suntreat today, but Suntreat is now owned by Agriculture Capital, an investment fund based in Portland, Oregon.) If anyone asked about their trees, they were to call them “XP1.” But once they started selling the fruit in 2011, they would call them “Sumo.” A company in California’s Central Valley called Suntreat bought the rights to Stark’s legal Shiranui budwood and assembled a club of citrus farmers to grow the trees and sell the fruit under an exclusive and confidential agreement. ![]() ![]() According to David Karp, writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2011, the most important importation was done by Brad Stark in 1998, as it was his budwood that led to Sumo. Shiranui budwood was eventually imported into California, legally and illegally, by numerous people. It was officially named Shiranui but also later gathered other names, such as Dekopon and Hallabong (in Korea). Shiranui is a variety of mandarin that was developed by researchers working for the Japanese government back in the 1970s, according to Citrograph Magazine. In stores, Shiranui mandarins are sold under the trademarked brand name “Sumo.” You may have seen them lately. Even my own Shiranui tree (above) is complicated. Nothing about the story of Shiranui is straightforward. ![]()
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