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Changsha mandarin opinions

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Pancrazio:
Hi,
I'd like to hear some opinions on the changsha mandarin. Finally I got my hands on a plant and I'm thinking about grafting it on poncirus. But I haven't decided yet if it will be used as ornamental tree or fruit producer. I'd love to hear what people think about it.
My zone is too cold for high quality citrus so I'm forced to use the more hardy ones.

Citradia:
Is your plant grown from seed or cutting or grafted? A seedling will need to grow tall before it blooms. Changsha fruit is small and full of seeds but supposed to be good. You can see photos of the fruit on internet. I lost a grafted changsha on FD two years ago d/t cold even with protection, but my seedling survived last winter with two nights of 0 degrees F and below freezing all of January inside plastic dome with small desk-type space heater plugged into a "thermo cube" to regulate temperature and a large plastic barrel of water against tree. 

Pancrazio:
It's a grafted plant, grafted on alemow. My temperature luckily aren't brutal as yours, so i hope to be able to grow it outside. On very bad years we can get 14F (and even lower on historical data) but they are, as i said, pretty exceptional occurrence.
I did fear it to be bland; seeds don't worry me much, there's a plenty of good seeded citrus that i wouldn't mind to grow.  Thank you for your help and valuable data!

SoCal2warm:
From what I've read, they are sweet and good flavor but a little bland. One person said the ones he grew had a slightly skunky smell inside. But overall not so different from regular mandarins.

SoCal2warm:
I visited Jim VH in Vancouver, WA (right across the bridge from Portland) and saw that his Changsha tree was loaded with fruit. Last year it had no fruit. Seems most of his hardy citrus trees are alternate bearing, putting out lots of fruit only every two years. He is in climate zone 8a, the tree is growing closely up against his house. The tree survives there without being covered, might be about 5 feet tall and is very vigorous growing now.
I only tasted one fruit, and it may not have been the most ripe (although it was completely orange), but it was a fresh picked fruit right from the tree.
It tasted like a very low quality mandarin. What I mean by that is, sometimes when you go to the supermarket they might be selling mandarins that are not the freshest, or not very good. Well, this was only just a little bit worse than that.
Which, for cold hardy citrus standards probably is not that bad.
The inside seemed just a little bit dry as well.
Cutting it open, there was a slight fragrance that was rich in terpenes. Jim commented that it smelled a little like marijuana/cannabis, which is probably accurate I think.
I cannot say I really appreciate the flavor of Changsha, but they definitely are edible. It was just like a really subpar variety of ordinary mandarin.
If given to me and I was hungry, I probably would eat them, but I just would not be very enthusiastic about it.
(Again, I am only describing tasting one fruit, one time)

Unlike with Yuzu, the peel of Changsha is definitely not edible. In fact I would say it is even less edible than the peels of Satsuma (even though the peels of Satsuma are not exactly edible).

The tree loaded with orange fruit is very beautiful, when we're talking about a climate where citrus does not normally grow.
As for whether it should be grown for eating, or only has ornamental value, I would draw a comparison here to Arbutus unedo, if anyone is familiar with that.
What I mean is, it's sort of "borderline edible", and you can certainly snack a little bit on the fruits if you like, but you probably will not be very enthusiastic about it, and will probably not be wanting to eat very many of them.

They are just a little more edible than Chinotto sour orange though, in my personal opinion. At least Changsha does not have any bitterness, which Chinotto does a little bit. I don't know if that comparison is helpful. Changsha is a little bit bland though, compared to Chinotto and Yuzu.

Also, of the different type of mandarins, Changsha most reminded me of a Clementine type mandarin.

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