We’ll tell you when a bottle in your cellar reaches its window, or an ingredient you cook with comes into season.
Preparing
Rotate to portrait
PAIR is designed to be held upright. Turn your phone back to portrait to keep going.
Dekopon (Sumo)
Citrus reticulata × sinensis · Citrus
40 pairings
The dekopon is the knobbed, seedless premium eating mandarin — a tangor bred in Japan from Kiyomi and ponkan and sold worldwide as Sumo Citrus. Instantly recognisable by the raised bump at its stem end, it is unusually large for a mandarin, peels away in a single sheet from a loose, bumpy rind, and eats intensely sweet and low in acid, with a firm, honeyed, seedless flesh that has made it one of the most sought-after fresh citrus of the winter season.
Shop freshSnacking, segments over a salad, the zest for a cake.Everyday best
Weight in handStill heavy, the thick rind giving a little under the thumb
The knobNeck firm, a fine crease ringing its base
RindDeep orange, matte, the odd pale scuff
Scratched peelWarm and honeyed when rubbed, less spray
What to look for, from heavy, tight-necked, fragrant to light, dry, grainy inside.
Keeping ittap a band
A domestic fridge holds it about 2× longer than the counter.
Humidity
90–95%
The rind is thick, but the neck is not: dry fridge air creases it there first, then the juice sacs go dry and gritty.
Airflow
Vented, not sealed
A vented bag or an open bowl; sealed in plastic a fruit this big sweats and blue mould starts at the stem scar.
Hurries the rot, never the cure
It gives off almost none itself, but ethylene from apples and bananas deepens the rind and hurries stem-end rot; it never drops the acid — weeks of curing did that.