I was able to harvest some trifoliate orange fruit from several trees growing in the wild, and one unusually shaped fruit that was laying on the edge of the street in front of the yard of someone who is growing one very large likely trifoliate
in a yard with some other fruit trees. I noticed how the ripe fruits all gave off a very pleasant scent whenever I was within a couple of feet of them. I had read of other people’s attempts at making lemonade from trifoliate orange and have been perplexed by the wide range of experiences, so obviously I wanted to try it for myself.
Most of the fruit were harvested several weeks earlier and their skin had started to brown with the usual mottled appearance these fruit develop with time.
Finally there was a good evening to try my hand. I sliced all of the fruit open and tried licking the pulp of all except the one that looked rather dried out.
None of the ones I tasted were unpleasant, and there was only a little resin that was left on my lips making them feel different afterwards.
Even with the single extraordinarily large, unusually shaped fruit that came from someone’s yard I didn’t notice anything different.
Discarding the one dried-up fruit I used a handheld citrus juicer and then poured everything through a mesh strainer. Now, my first experience with trifoliate orange was in 2006. I knew way back then that the fruit was full of seeds, but it wasn’t until I juiced these that I got real experience with the pulp to seed ratio. I ended up with a large collection of seeds and nary a quarter of a cup of juice. Dipping a finger in it the taste was not bad, taking a sip it was pleasantly flavored and not overly bitter (but I do enjoy the taste of bitter orange, so there’s that). I added white cane sugar and cool water and stirred to dissolve. The taste of this “lemonade” was delicious. I wish that I had more fruit and there was a better way to quickly juice the fruits, I would totally enjoy having a lemonade flavored like this on a regular basis.
Now here’s my analysis, and this is the most important part for those of y’all out there: considering how long I left the fruit after I harvested them, I think that there is likely a ripening process that continues to take place after the fruit easily detaches from the tree, and that it renders the fruit juice more palatable as a result of that additional time. For those of y’all who had bad experiences in the past I would encourage y’all to try again, just under slightly different circumstances!