Got these from a friend of a friend who had them growing on a rural property. Large size, very juicy. I tend to try out local fruit varieties wherever I go, and this one was highly unique. Flavor I would describe as sweet lemonade. Tastes like a lemon, but is sweet like an orange. Exquisite. Anyone had anything like it?
Is it maybe “Cocktail”? Though looks less seedy than those usually are. They are often referred to as grapefruit but don’t have the grapefruit taste, they are more like a sweet, subacid lemon/orange.
Cocktail grapefruits are medium to large fruits, averaging 7 to 10 centimeters in diameter, and have a round to ovate shape with a flattened bottom on the non-stem end. The peel is thin, smooth, lightly pocked with tiny oil glands, and transitions from green to yellow with maturity. It is important to note that some green may remain on the peel when ripe, and the green coloring is not an indication of ripeness. The skin is easy-to-peel, revealing a thin layer of bitter, sour white pith. Underneath the pith, the flesh ranges in color from yellow to yellow-orange and is aqueous, tender, and divided into 12 to 13 segments by slender membranes. The flesh also encloses many cream-colored, oval seeds. Cocktail grapefruits are aromatic and contain low acidity, developing a sweet, subtly tart flavor with orange, floral, herbal, and fruity notes.
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Looks very similar to my cocktail grapefruit. Better eating than some of our oranges, but lots of seeds.
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Could be a citrange as well. Around the 1900’s many nurseries got into a Citrange growing fade in areas well out of citrus growing areas.
Actually I think it would be interesting to modernize the citrange concept using today’s best trifoliate cultivar and a top flite excellent orange.
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It could be a cocktail grapefruit. The description fits except it’s not particularly seedy. Usually one plump seed per slice but sometimes zero and sometimes two.
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I don’t think it is. The fruit quality is too high. He described it as sweet and good tasting, which is only something one or two trifoliate hybrids even approach. None are really sweet. It’s also easily peeled and segmented by the looks of things and has fairly few seeds, the combination of which rules out pretty much all trifoliate hybrids and their progeny.
There are people working on trifoliate hybrids, but mostly amateur hobbyists. And there honestly hasn’t been much progress, despite lots of effort over the years.
Personally, I don’t think trifoliate alone is realistic for breeding cold hardiness into citrus in most cases. Some trifoliate, sure, but then work in kumquat and/or something from the ichang papeda group of cultivars. Thomasville is a good example of a terrible trifoliate hybrid being parent to a pretty decent little hardy citrus, but only because the other parent is kumquat.
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Maby a sweet lime? There are many varieties.
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Googling sweet lime, the flavor is listed as sweet but not tart. This citrus definitely had a sweet-tart profile. Are there sweet limes with that flavor?
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Do you know if it was a grafted tree or could it have been seed-grown? Maybe it was a zygotic seedling of Cocktail x Cocktail that is less seedy?
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It’s likely seed-grown. From what I know of the provenance, it was grown by a long time hobbyist with an interest in unusual citrus varieties. I did ask the person I got it from if the tree was grafted, and they didn’t know but thought it was unlikely to be grafted.
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Some varieties can have some tartness… i don’t know what sweet limes are available in US.
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I’ve been looking around a bit for sweet Limettas. The only variety I’ve really seen in the US is Millsweet.
They describe it having pale yellow flesh, low seeded, and low in acidity, giving the juice a sweet taste.
Neither consider it at all cold hardy though, unlike the citrus is question?
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It doesn’t look like the citrus fruit in question… maby other.
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What zone is it grown in and is it outside? Ive had a sweeet lime before and the resemblance is kind of there but I dont think most people like the taste of tthem (very pinesol like if I recall correctly)
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Grown outside, zone 9B.
Flavor is not pinesol. It’s sweet-tart and acid. Best comparison I can make is fresh squeezed lemonade with a few spoonfuls of sugar. Lemon flavor and tartness is present, but its sweet and delightfully palatable to eat fresh. Orange notes are present but subtler.
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Looks like a somewhat underripe Satsuma to me. Photo of a leaf showing the petiole could help nail it down. Decidedly not a sweet lime or Cocktail.
Seems a bit many seeds for a Satsuma though, and big ones at that.
Zone 5a and ripe in June?
Hmm! Off to do research.
Kinkoji or Bloomsweet Are about the only ones I could find under cold hardy using the Madison Citrus nursery website. Unless it’s an unknown hybrid. You can go on their website. It’s a very good resource. Especially if you can get a leaf and mental picture of the tree.
No, the OP said this: