Sweet lime (Mosambi)

Citrus limettioides · Citrus

40 pairings

The sweet lime, known across South Asia as mosambi (or musambi) and in the Middle East as limu shirin, is a low-acid citrus grown almost entirely for its juice. Green-to-yellow and lime-like on the outside, it is startlingly mild inside — gently sweet, faintly floral and almost devoid of the sharp tartness that defines other limes. Pressed fresh at roadside stalls from Delhi to Cairo, its pale, refreshing juice is one of the great everyday drinks of the tropics, prized as much for being easy on the stomach as for its flavour.

Picking a good onedrag

Heavy, taut, oil-freshLight, puffy, drying out

Stall freshThe everyday mosambi: press it, or eat the segments out of hand.Buy it

Weight in handSolid and dense, no give at the poles

RindSmooth green-yellow, tight on the segments

Stem scarButton gone, the scar dry and tight

Scratched peelGently fragrant when rubbed, no bite to it

What to look for, from heavy, taut, oil-fresh to light, puffy, drying out.

What one gives you

84%

Usable yield

peel and pips out · about four-fifths of the fruit

Keeping ittap a band

A fortnight in the crisper is harmless, but weeks below about 7 °C pit the thin rind brown — damage that often shows only once the fruit warms up.

Humidity

85–95%

Loose in the crisper, unwashed: the thin rind gives up water fast and the segments go dry and cottony.

Airflow

Ventilated

A vented bag or an open bowl, never sealed — shut in damp plastic the stem scar sweats and green mould starts there.

Colours the rind, never sweetens it

It makes almost no ethylene itself, but like other citrus an apple or banana beside it strips green from the rind and hurries stem-end decay. It never sweetens off the tree.

Preparing