i prefer shorter summer. Fruits grow best in spring and autumn, when temperatures move between 15C and 25 C.

Meyer juice is hard to cook with too, it looses flavor and become bland quickly, unlike real lemon juice which cooks down very well. The best uses I have for it are fresh juice on veggies or fish and lemonade, you can make some pretty good vinaigrette and sauces too. I have to agree with millet, not the best lemon nor orange. However the tree is so prolific and beautiful, it truly earns its place in my garden!

I agree if you mean the so called "improved" meyerii ...
Thanx God we have still the original in europe ...

Adriano you have the original delicious Meyerii.
Let some grow till the skin turns orange, you will be surprised ...

The only difference between the original & "improved" Meyer, is that the "improved" is disease free.

No, they look not even same ...
I always thought the improved is another cross made with Meyerii ...

"Improved" Meyerii :
http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/meyer_lemon.htm
http://www.floridata.com/ref/c/citr_mey.cfm
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/345581/

Original Meyerii :
http://www.flora-toskana.de/onlineshop2/product_info.php?products_id=2171
(scroll down for more pics)

I cook with Meyer lemon juice, peel and grate all the time. It imparts a very nice lemony flavor. It doesn't taste off or weird at all, and the lemon juice is great to cook with. Many top 4 star chefs all around the world use and prefer Meyer lemons to cook with (thanks to Martha Stewart for extolling their virtues). There actually is a pretty big high-end specialty chef market for the Meyer. I love mine, I use them all the time when a lemon is called for and I will have to say, I'm no slough in the kitchen being 1/2 Italian I like regular lemons too, when I want something really strongly lemon-flavored, but for most of my cooking, I use my Meyers. Love them. Just gotta figure out what to do with the gazillion regular, unknown variety lemon I have that are ginormous, very juicy and seedless. Still do not know what variety they are. They're awfully good though, and lemon trees grow like weeds here, so this tree is so prolific, it is actually falling over. I'm going to have to prune away a very large branch to even up this poor little tree that was nearly dead when I moved in to our home 3 years ago.

maybe you have ther original one ...

I remember till like 10 years ago nurseries in USa sold both original and improved Meyerii same time.

Laaz is 100 percent correct. There is absolutely NO difference between improved Meyer lemon and the original Meyer lemon except the improved Meyer lemon is disease free. Otherwise they are totally one and the same fruit.. - Millet

Sanguinello, there are no original Meyer lemon trees left in the state of California (or just about none). I know mine is definitely not, as it was only planted about 5 years ago. And, as several forum members have already indicated, the Improved Meyer lemon is genetically identical to the original Meyer lemon, with only once exception - no tristeza virus. They test exactly the same. They are genetically exactly the same. They taste wonderful, I love mine, and i have lemons almost year round on the tree.

I would imagine meyer would be acceptable as a replacement in many cases but, my point is it cannot match a true lemon in some dishes, especially when the juice is cooked down, it just dose not hold the lemon flavor and becomes sweet and floral. This is undesirable if you are expecting a normal lemon flavor(which is good) in your dish.

There's only one thing I find odd : some people find the peel of meyer good and use it for whatever they like to use it for, but I find the aroma of the peel of my meyer (which comes from Flora Toscana) bad, totally not lemon like. I understand different people have different tastes, but the difference can't be that much...

I like it .. it is orange like.

Lazz and Millet are correct, the the Improved Meyer Lemon does not have the Tristeza virus. The old line Meyer Lemon does have the virus. The fruit of both have the same taste.

When I was new to Citrus and was researching the the Meyer Lemon and the "Improved" I was discouraged because I could not find the IMPROVED.

As I dug further into research I found that the Non-Improved is no longer sold and all the current "Meyer Lemons" were improved and it was no longer necesssary to tag them Improved.

Further research revealed the the "Improved" was simply a standard Meyer that did not have the disease that was devastating the Meyer Lemons and it was from that one tree that all Meyers are now derived.

Original Meyers Non-Improved eventually developed the disease and died or where destoyed with only minimal non-improved trees left in the world only because they have not been exposed to the disease or those trees are genetically "Improve Meyer Lemons'" naturally and not designated as such by man.

EDIT I discovered after posting they were a carrier of the disease that was lethal to other citrus and that is why they were destroyed.

I hope that makes sense. It does to me but then again I had a stressful day and have enjoyed a bit of Bourbon tonight.

While I'm expounding on things that are way "above my pay grade" let me say this. I believe that although all "Improved Meyer Lemons" should be genetically identical there are still environmental factors to consider. These factors could explain why some IPMLemons have better taste than others and why the zest of some are better than others.

I have now extended my brain cells way beyond the normal limits and invite others to thoroughly destroy my thoughts on this subject

Thanks for reading if you stayed with it this long.