http://seattlest.com/2010/01/22/yuzu.php

Yuzu, Green Tea, and Beer


The humble yuzu.

Yuzu, native to China and Tibet, is a cross between a wild citrus known as ichang papeda and a sour mandarin orange. The fruit looks like a golfball-size grapefruit with a rough-textured skin, and can be either yellow or green depending on the degree of ripeness. It is widely cultivated in Japan where it's a popular culinary ingredient.

Fresh yuzu is available seasonally at Japanese markets but is rarely eaten out of hand. It is more commonly consumed in the form of juice, frozen fruit, dried peel, and kosho (a paste of yuzu rind, hot peppers, and salt). It is also used to make liquor and wine. On the evening of the winter solstice, as part of a tradition to encourage health in the new year, many Japanese enjoy a hot yuzu bath.

Japanese immigrants have been growing yuzu trees in California for over a century, but until recently the fruit wasn't widely cultivated for commercial sale. Now that's changing with an increasing amount of farmers starting to raise yuzu to fulfill the demands from chefs. One such farmer is Robert McClendon. McClendon, a longtime pharmacist turned botanist, runs one of the Phoenix metro area's only USDA-certified organic produce farms. He has created a niche market by custom-growing exotic crops for some of the Southwest's top restaurants. When James Beard award winner Nobuo Fukuda came to him inquiring about yuzu he hadn't even heard of it. But after researching the fruit, he planted an orchard of 30 trees.

One could make a lot of beer with that much yuzu. Did we neglect to mention that yuzu has already made its way into beer? Who else but the Belgians would combine yuzu, green tea, and beer. Anyone know where we can get some Iki beer?

By ryan in Food on January 22, 2010 11:00 AM

Some photos of different cultivars of yuzu

Some seeds!

Would this grow in zone 11?

Come true from seed? (don't die laughing, I know..)

Even though Yuzu is monoembronic it still seems to produce true from seed. When grown from seed in the Virgin Islands, it would probably begin to fruit in 3 to 5 years. My two Yuzu trees were both grown from seed, inside a year around warm greenhouse, and fruited in their 4th year. I grow Yuzu trees, mostly for no reason other than just because. In Alan's post above, it is stated that the Japanese consume it mostly as a drink. They must juice a million fruits to get anything. Yuzu is 97 percent seeds, with just a very little available juice. I pick my fruit and mostly just toss them out. The one thing I possibly would use Yuzu for (but never have) would be to squeeze a little of the juice on fish. - Millet (1078-)

You could make Ponzu which is a Japanese Soy sauce type marinade.

Yuzu peel is used in "dashi" type soup stock, I like to use it instead of lemon in salad dressing. Some selections are less seedy, but probably graft propagated ?

Next to satsumas, I've had more success with Yuzus than anything else. My one Yuzu tree is grafted to poncirus trifoliata and actually had one fruit its first year! Strange to see a tree barely 18 inches tall bearing fruit.









I know grafting to poncirus roostock generally results in earlier fruiting and dwarf size regardless of the variety, but is it unusual to have such early fruiting as this? I'm impressed either way!

I have several yuzu specimens in pots I had a few blooms last summer. I am considering planting one of them between a Nippon Orangequat and a Changsha. How cold hardy are they? How do they hold up where temperatures may stay around or below freezing for several days?
How closely related is the Yuzu to the Sudachi?
I am endeavoring to find a few cultivars that will will grow in my location with minimal protection.

Greg