millet, i assure you its deserved this time. i been eating store bought cuties for what seems like months now. they arent generally that great either, hit and miss if you will.

laaz, my taste buds like any citrus really, but if i had to choose, im leaning towards tartness. thats why i prefer the mandarins over oranges. from what ive read, the tangelo shouldnt taste like a spoiled navel so i dont know if i want it or not. i know it has to taste better than what ive tasted. guess ill just buy some more till i get a good one

I agree. My wife will buy satsumas & navels when mine are gone... The satsumas from the store are nasty & the navels are much drier than from my tree.

I agree with Laaz, that a fresh picked fruit of any type (not just citrus) can have the optimum taste. However, personally, I have never tasted a "nasty" citrus from the store.- Millet (244 BO-)

I'll send ya some satsumas from Piggly Wiggly next time they have some.

South Carolina still has Piggly Wiggly stores? Colorado has not had Piggly Wiggly for at least 20 years. Millet (244 BO)

http://www.pigglywiggly.com/

Gee, Millet, I'll serve you up some very nasty Cara Cara's I just bought. Ick. Overripe, dried out, insipid and becoming off-tasting. I didn't even know a navel could get off-tasting. I was so dissapointed - this is the land of the navel orange. My Cara Cara was outstanding, but still young and only had a few fruits. I'll have quite a crop next year, though, it's just full of new fruits.

Redster, if you're more a tart citrus fan, most of the "Gold" mandarins developed by UCR are very sweet. But I think well-balanced. I love them all, but my two favs are Gold Nugget and Yosemite Gold. Here is Calif., Gold Nugget is ripe between March and August (yup, not kidding, holds on the tree exceptionally well, a great plus in my mind), Yosemite Gold is ripe between Jan and April. Now, that being said, I would have you consider two other options that have a little more "bite". One is the Minneola tangelo, which is a tried and true cross between a Duncan grapefruit and Dancy mandarin. You may know them as "Honeybells". They kind of have a cult following here in S. Calif. Too tart for me, but they do very well here, and folks love them. They're ripe between Jan and March here. For me, I prefer my citrus a little sweeter, so I have a "Page" mandarin, which is a cross between a Minneola tangelo and Clementine mandarin (probably really a tangelolo, 3/4 mandarin and 1/4 grapefruit). It is exceptional. My little Page had 5 fruit this year and they were outstanding, so I'm very excited about this variety. They ripen here from Nov through January, so not very late, but I didn't pick mine until March, since the one I did pick in Jan was not sweet enough, yet. By March they were superb. It looks a lot like an orange, but does not at all taste like an orange. It is a mandarin with a "kick".

I have tasted "nasty" citrus from store before, that happens off-season usually.
Today I bought some oranges from Greece, before tasting I expected those to be a "nasty" but pleasant surprise followed - (not rich in flavour but) quite good actually assuming date.

Honeybell is a very misleading word in an effort to describe the actual taste of a Minneola tangelo. - Millet (244 BO-)

I know, Millet. Odd choice for a name. Being from Calif, I had never heard them referred to by this name, always as 'Minneola'. And, not my personal favorite citrus, too tart for my sweet palette, but is is extremely popular in Calif. That's why I was a little hesitant to add Page to my little citrus orchard. So glad I did, I was so surprised at how incredibly good they were. I ate one in hand, and juiced the others. They made the best juice ever. Can't wait for next year's crop

millet, theres still at least one piggly down in laffite la. im not sure it counts considering its at the end of the world to anybody not living there lol.

hoosier, before this morning my top choice based solely on maturity date was the gold nugget and temple orange. i had considered the page a while back, but i opted for the ponkan mandarin instead for that time period. and i cant LEGALLY get a temple so i was leaning toward the minneola, but all the ones ive bought tasted worst than those cara caaras you bought. thats what the fuss is about right now.

so im desparate enough that this morning i jumped across the mississippi river to the whole foods market and another local store to see what they have. i feel like i may have struck gold, almost literally! i seen a familiar looking but unlabelled fruit that i just had to ask about. after asking 3 people one guy thinks its called a nugget, and starts to peel one for me and another guy to taste test. it could have been sweeter but its still one of the best tasting sweet fruits ive had in a long while. not sure what brand it is, but its marketed as a dimples lol. that one fruit alone made up my mind, im getting the gold nugget.

i also bought more minneolas from 2 stores including organic from whole foods, if these dont taste something better than ive had, i give up on tangelos...

and whole foods also had pixie tangerines, they too dam small for my taste to want to plant my own tree, but the flavor was excellent. tart kick with sweet undertones.

'Dimples' mandarins are marketed by Cecelia Packing (San Joaquin Valley, Calif), and yes indeed, they are 'Gold Nugget' mandarins. They are excellent, and a larger alternative to the equally excellent Pixie (I just pop a whole Pixie in my mouth at a time). Now, if you really want to get the very, very best mandarin ever, and don't mind eating two at a time ('cause they're pretty small), the most superlative mandarin in my opinion (for what that's worth, anyway), is the Seedless Kishu. I think they're starting to make their way to the Gulf Coast area. They are really about as seedless a citrus out there, and their flavor is simply unmatched. I have 11 different mandarin varieties, and if you told me I could only have one, it would be the Seedless Kishu. It is absolutely delicious, sweet, great acid to sugar ratio and complex. Downside, is it's a typical winter ripening mandarin, Oct through March/April. The Gold Nugget is my most late variety. I have mandarins on my trees for about 11 months out of the year. So, between my Seedless Kishu's and Clemintine Nules, to my Gold Nuggets, I'm covered.

Well i only have room for 2 more in ground then thats absolutely it! I really dont want something as small as kishu for that. Maybe if i were to lose one of my earlier varieties id think about it. I was gonna get a sour kumquat to put in a pot, maybe the kishu might make a good replacement for it instead.

Definitely worth growing in a pot for sure. You won't be sorry. I was a skeptic, but after tasting them at UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection, I was sold. And, so was everyone else that worked there. Their two Seedless Kishu trees had all the reachable fruit picked clean. They are one of the most popular trees in the Collection with the employees. Dr. Kahn said you could always tell which fruit were the "winners" at the Collection by the amount of fruit picked off

I once had a Seedless Kishu tree, and it did produced good tasting fruit. However, I tossed the entire tree out onto the compost pile, because of the tiny size of the micro-fruit. A Kishu is just way to small to bother with. It is so small, peeling it is like threading a needle. - Millet (244 BO-)