So what is a Tangerine?

[Mike T]

I have heard references to the fruit tangerine forever and just thought it to be what americans call mandarins from Morocco. As a colour I know it is a very bright orange but as a fruit I suspect it is meant to be seedless, bright and loose skinned mandarins. I know the term is increasingly used in Australia for specific mandarins and higher prices are charged. The term papaya is slowly replacing the old word paw paw for that fruit and seems to have settled on a name for red fleshed paw paw as opposed to yellow fleshed which are held in lower regard.
Can anyone clarify if a tangerine must come from morocco, is only used for some mandarins, is more about form than variety and what makes a fruit a tangerine in the US rather than a mandarin? There seems to be some confusion as how it is applied outside America?

[mrtexas]

All mandarins in USA are tangerines. Tangerine is a generic term for common citrus something not lemon, not orange, not grapefruit, not lime.
Most tangerines now marketed are seedless as that is what the consumer wants. In short, citrus reticulata.

[Tom]

The name Tangerine has evolved from the citrus fruit that was exported through Tangiers. It was often seeded. Juanita is know as a tangerine in USA I believe and it ,famously to some, grew from a seed of a tangerine purchased from a grocery store. I've heard some say things like a manderin can be a tangerine but all tangerines are not mandarins. I think others substitute the name satsuma where they wish. I have to say when you say citrus reticulata you've said it all, seedless or not !

And of course seedless does not mean completely seedless. It can be very confusing. All I want to know is what is the common name and how does it taste. And then of course the same citrus retculata does not taste the same depending on where it was grown and what root stock it was grown on. Quality and taste vary a lot !

And not to sound like a smart ___, I've tasted fruit off my own tree from different limbs that both tasted very good but very different. And that was on the same side of the tree the same day. Different sides can taste different too. The best I've ever had was fresh off someone else's tree and a year or two later that tree had very ordinary to not very good fruit.

Tom

[Millet]

The first fruits imported from Tangiers into the USA which were mandarins, but they were commonly called tangerines.  The word tangerine, while used quite commonly, has no validity what so ever in the taxonomy of citrus fruits.  All tangerines are mandarins.  The word is very informal usage or could even be called slang.

[mrtexas]

To the man on the street even easier, all orange colored citrus fruits that aren't a round orange(navel, valencia, etc) including hybrids.

[Cyan]

Appreciate the clarification about the word "tangerine".  So we should not use it?  I want to be accurate when I describe fruit varieties.