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Ponkan
Citrus reticulata · Citrus
40 pairings
The ponkan is the big, aromatic loose-skinned mandarin known as the Chinese honey orange — a distinct old mandarin type, not a satsuma or clementine, with a puffy, bumpy rind that slips off in the hand and eats intensely sweet, richly perfumed and low in acid. Widely grown across southern China, India, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and Brazil, it is one of the most important fresh-eating mandarins in the world and a classic New Year and gift fruit across East Asia.
Picking a good onedrag
Heavy, taut, deep orangePuffed, light, drying inside
Shop freshSnacking, gift bowls, segments over a salad or a cake.Everyday best
Weight in handSolid, the loose rind just sliding over the flesh
RindOrange and slightly slack, a green cast at the neck
The buttonButton on, the ring around it browning
Scratched rindWarm and floral, rounder than a tangerine
What to look for, from heavy, taut, deep orange to puffed, light, drying inside.
What one gives you
74%
Usable yield
about 88 g · peel and pips out
119 g
Typical weight
one specimen
Keeping ittap a band
Its own store is 7-10 °C: below about 5 °C the thick rind pits and then decays, and it often shows only once the fruit is back on the counter.
Humidity
90–95%
The thick rind buffers it better than a satsuma's, but dry fridge air still sinks the neck first and dries the segment walls to paper.
Airflow
Vented, not sealed
A vented bag or an open bowl; sealed in plastic the loose rind sweats and blue mould starts at the button.
Hurries the rot, never the ripening
Non-climacteric and barely a producer, but sensitive: ethylene from apples and bananas hurries stem-end rot and decay, and it never sweetens off the tree.