Greetings everybody I am very very excited
I have over 20 different citrus varieties
with me today. I am going to be
reviewing these citruses on the channel
over the next few months. It will
probably take me a while to do it.
I am going to be breaking it up and
doing this mixed in with my other reviews
for the next few months.
These were very generously donated to me
by the Monterey Bay Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers
Origination. It is a mouthful to say that
We will call it the CRFG which they are
known as. It is an origination for people
who grow rare fruit trees. It is not just
in California, it originated in California
but now it is an origination that is world
wide. This origination runs events and
provides resources for people who grow rare fruit.
So, If you grow rare fruit or are someone
who likes to grow plants, check out the
link in the description below.
The Monterey chapter has an annual citrus
tasting event. All the members that grow
citrus gather together and share some of
the interesting citruses that they are
growing in their collections. However they
weren't able to do it because this is
early 2021, as I film this, and COVID is a thing right now.
So in lieu of gathering
together and having a tasting, they sent
the citruses to me. I am deeply, deeply
honored to be given this sort of opportunity.
It is such a shame with COVID these sorts
of events are not able to happen. I hope
that doing a personal review of these,
My own tasting and sharing it with the
world, I can give a little respect to all
the hard work that goes into producing
these fruits. I figured I'd start things
off with something very interesting.
This is the most hard to find, rarest
citrus that they sent me.
This little guy right here. This is a Gholston Tangor or a Gholston Mandarin.
Now the person that arranged this tasting
with me, Jason, He said that there were
only about 10 trees that produce this
fruit in existence. Due to certain
quarantine laws in California it is
difficult to trade plants so there are
only about 10 trees.
This is named after Don Gholston who I
believe is the founder of this chapter of
the CRFG and some of the members said that
this is an appropriate fruit to be named
after him because Don, like this fruit, is small and sweet.
Don, unfortunately passed away in 1998, I
believe, but his name lives on in this small sweet citrus fruit here.
As I have mentioned on this channel
quite a lot, citruses that we eat are very
often the product of hybridization of
other citruses. The Orange, for instance,
is what you get if you cross a Pomelo
with a mandarin. It is more complicated
than that but the fruits we eat come from
the cross pollination of other fruits.
This one is no exception. This is a hybred
of the Hamlin orange and a clementine
Tangerine. This particular variety is from
the collection of Gene Lester who had the
largest citrus collection in the United
States. Gene was a close friend of Don
Gholston. Unfortunately Gene has also
passed away recently. Still I would like
to give a big Thank You to both Don
and Gene for taking such efforts and
putting so much work into preserving
and promoting the different species of
rare fruit out there.
Ok, here we have the Gholston Mandarin.
I also picked up a regular supermarket
mandarin to compare with it.
I believe this is a clementine variety.
This is like one of the parents that is
inside this fruit here.
It does have seeds in it. it is not a
seedless variety.
This Clementine is seedless.
It looks very similar only if you shrunk
it down to about a tenth of the size.
They are a small fruit but I was told that
later in the season they end up getting
a little bit larger.
It smells good. It smells like a regular
mandarin.
Yea! These are small but they are powerful
They have a nice sweetness to it, a nice
tartness to it. It is very well balanced.
It is not harsh at all there is no
bitterness. The sweetness on that is
pretty high. It is sweeter than an apple,
sweeter than an Orange. I think maybe
a 7 out of 10. The tartness on that is a
little bit more than an orange.
Maybe a 6 out of 10.
The flavor on it is very similar to a
clementine but it is is a little more
concentrated. It tastes very strong.
It is almost like you are having a
mandarin orange syrup. There is a
strong concentration of flavor and it
is also very sweet. It also has a touch
of a honey note to it.
Lets actually make sure. I have a
clementine here. Lets see how similar
it is.
if you were to take one of these and fill
it up with water it would be like this.
only this isn't as juicy as this.
Maybe that isn't a great example.
the flavor on this is much less, the
tartness is less, the sweetness is less,
but it does have a similarity to this.
Lets give some actual scientific facts
and figures here though.
The sweetness on this is like an orange
It is maybe like a 5, the tartness is also
about a 5. It does have the benefit of not
having seeds but it comes at a pretty
great cost. I like those, they are totally
fine but this thing is overall a better fruit.
Because this is such a rare opportunity
Lets try some more parts of it.
I want to take a bite out of this rind
here. I am not sure if it is going to be
any good. It almost looks like a little
kumquat so I want to be able to just
pop one of these into my mouth
like a kumquat. Let's see.
The rind on the Gholoston is about the
same as the supermarket one.
It is a little bit bitter. You night want
to make candy out of it or something.
So I'd say the Gholston mandarin is
winner. I would like to, once again, Thank
the Monterey Bay Chapter of CRFG for
sending me this incredible bounty of
fruit. Including such a rarity like this
one. Only 10 trees in the entire world.
I feel very lucky to have been given a
chance to try this fruit, So Thank You
so much. And Thank everyone for watching.
I will be coming up in the future with
more fantastic citrus fruits that were
sent to me by the Monterey Bay Chapter
of the CRFG. I'll see you then. Bye-Bye.
I would like to give a shout out to
Smarter Every Day, Alt-pod, and the
Harbor Leaf Tea Company. They are Mega
Patrons over on patreon.com. If you
haven't heard of it, Patreon it is how this channel happens.
It is how I can afford to keep
this YouTube channel going. So If you
haven't checked it out please take a
moment to go to the description below and
click the link there. I also have these
t-shirts for sale over on my webstore.
A link for that is in the description
as well. Thanks so much guys Bye-Bye.