Hello everybody, so I'm here today to talk about another citrus fruit and this one was kindly sent to me by Wanderlust Nursery.
So if you're interested in this and growing this, check out
wanderlustnursery.com.
So, in the past I have talked about so many different citruses and usually how I present them is
in order to get this citrus, it is a hybrid between these two fruits. So
for instance, the orange is actually a hybrid between a pomelo and a mandarin. So if you take
the pollen from one and you put it on the plant of the other,
and those basically create a baby
that is an orange.
And it goes on and on like everything is like that. At least that's my very basic understanding to it.
I'm sure it's more complicated than that.
The parentage on this one is not known.
So when you look at the scientific name on this, usually if you look at a citrus,
it's going to say
Citrus
whatever x Citrus whatever.
It's going to have that x in there, meaning that it is a hybrid. This one has no x. This is Citrus
taiwanica. It has the common name
nansho sour orange and it's called the nancho sour orange because it's believed that this fruit originated in
Taiwan.
And sour because this thing is supposed to be really freaking sour.
I'm curious to see what this is like. I've tried so many different fruits that are hybrid fruits. So you usually get -
you can kind of taste the parentage a little bit sometimes. With this one, I don't know
what this is related to.
So, uh, I’m really curious what that's going to - what it's going to be like. Smelling it just like on the outside,
it smells, um, like a very floral grapefruit.
Even though it looks more like a mandarin,
the smell on that is not a mandarin. That is -
there's like a lot more going on there. As you can see on the inside,
there are a hell of a lot of seeds. This thing is packed full of seeds.
A lot of citruses have less seeds because they are cultivars.
So they've been cultivated so much and ones that have fewer seeds are preferred over ones that don't.
So with this one, it doesn't have all that that cultivation to it. So this one jam-packed with seeds.
And these seeds look, I don't know, like an orange seed. Maybe a little bit bigger.
Kind of like a typical citrus looking seed.
That's an interesting smell. It has a smell
kind of like an orange but
with a little hint of grapefruit to it. It also has a bit of the funk
of a marang.
Which I describe
as being a little bit like a gasoline kind of smell. Which people hate that I describe it that way. It's not really sulfuric,
It's not really cheesy. It's not something like that. I know that sounds like a bad thing,
but it is not necessarily a bad thing. Marangs are delicious and that is good quality in them.
That's the closest thing that I can kind of relate it to
is gasoline.
It has a little bit of that. It's not hugely strong.
It's not so strong as a marang but it does have a touch of it.
This is going to be sour so I'm a little reluctant but,
here goes nothing. I'm just gonna go for it.
Oh my god!
Ahhh.
That is really sour.
Holy crap.
It's so sour that it's difficult to get the flavor from that.
But let's try to break it down.
On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is a lemon, this
is more than that. This is probably like an 11 or 12.
This thing is more sour than a lemon, but definitely,
it does have sweetness to it.
Let me see if I can get a handle on how sweet it is.
It has a sweetness of like a tangerine,
A little bit more than an orange.
Maybe a six or seven out of ten. That flavor is somewhere in the line of an orange.
But there's more to it.
Maybe a little bit of a mandarin taste as well.
A little bit of a grapefruit taste to it. Like a touch of the
the bitterness that you would get from a grapefruit, but this is not very bitter. It's definitely sour, but not very bitter. A little bit.
Oh and yeah, it does, um, - it does have
a bit of that flavor
of that funk, that marang kind of funk.
Orange, lemon, grapefruit,
marang. That funkiness in there is the thing that really
makes it different. It's not something that I think I've noticed in citruses before so that is really unique.
Yeah, that's a very interesting one to try.
So, what I'm gonna do next is I'm gonna take some of this and mix it with water and make like a little
lemonade just so I can
taste the fruit without being overwhelmed by that sourness.
Still very strong!
Even watered down with sugar,
I put this at like a seven.
The flavor is really good though. It's um, it's unique. It is a unique taste in there.
And that flavor I can relate to other things but it's definitely it’s own citrus fruit.
It's a little bit more floral than other citruses. It's got
like a little bit of like a lavender kind of flavor to it. Just like a hint, not like tons of it,
like bergamot has like a strong
floral taste. This is not that much but like a hint. The funkiness that I said this has,
I can't really tell so much when you water it down and add sugar.
I guess I can still detect it like a little bit, but it's reduced a lot.
It feels like it's maybe like contributing a little bit to the uh, the overall flavor of this but it's not really
you know, hitting me so much. I wouldn't have detected that
flavor if I didn't have it fresh first. Yeah, but overall really good. I think this is something that if you like
citruses,
this would be a fun one to play with. It's definitely too strong to eat out of hand.
This is something that you want to cook with. You want to put this
In a dish that calls for lemon
and it would make it taste completely different. It would not taste like a lemon anymore if you're to make like
lemonade like I did. This does not taste like lemonade. This tastes like its own thing.
If you were to take that and make like a lemon meringue pie or like a jam or something like that out of this thing,
It would be a completely unique thing. So it's really cool to get a chance to try something that is a citrus
that is not really
in the ballpark of other citruses that are more common. So, um, yeah happy to get a chance to try this and thanks again to
Matt and Megan over at Wanderlust Nursery for sending this to me. Otherwise, I will see you next time.
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