Natsumikan (Amanatsu)

Citrus natsudaidai · Citrus

40 pairings

The natsumikan (Citrus natsudaidai) is Japan's big, bracing "summer orange" — a thick-rinded, pomelo-type citrus, roughly grapefruit-sized and deep yellow-orange, whose juicy segments eat sharply sour-sweet with a clean, slightly bitter edge. Ripening on the tree through winter but left to hang and mellow until early summer, it is eaten fresh out of hand, its coarse rind is boiled into marmalade and candied peel, and its refreshing tartness makes it one of the most distinctive of the traditional Japanese citrus.

Picking a good onedrag

Just cut, hard and acidLong-held, puffy and dry

MellowedAcid down, juice full - peel it deep and eat the segments.Buy it

Rind colourEven deep yellow-orange, no green left

Rind under the thumbFirm, gives a little and springs straight back

Stem endCalyx dry and brown, still firmly attached

Scratched peelFull sweet-sharp peel oil at a light scratch

What to look for, from just cut, hard and acid to long-held, puffy and dry.

What one gives you

55%

Usable yield

220 g flesh · rind, membrane and pips out

400 g

Typical weight

one specimen

Keeping ittap a band

Japanese stores hold it at 5-8 C; colder and the rind stains with brown blotch, and dry air brings that on even inside the band.

Humidity

80–90%

Stores cure the rind dry first - 2-5% of the fruit's weight - then hold 80-90%. Bare in dry air that thick peel slackens and lifts off the segments.

Airflow

Open, spaced

Crates stand spaced and get picked over for rotters; sealed in plastic the scar sweats and blue mould walks in at the button.

Answers to it, never ripens by it

It makes next to none itself and never sweetens off the tree - only the acid falls. Like other stored citrus it answers to apple and banana gas: calyx drops, then stem-end rot.

Preparing