The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: BonsaiBeast on March 19, 2019, 02:33:01 PM
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People have been suggesting these varieties as highly ornamental edible citrus. Are they considered elite or more novelties?
I find them quite interesting nonetheless and would love to learn more.
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Some would say yes, they are worthy to grow, especially Calamondin. I am not one of them
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Calamondin invaded the shops. They are everywhere. I find the sour and not tasty.
They are easy to grow and they take very well dry environment inside the house.
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Some would say yes they are worthy to grow, especially Calamondin. I am not one of them
Is that based on the taste? I've heard they have some cool features. What makes you skip over them?
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Calamondin is very popular here with people from the Phillippines who call it calamansi. We use them just like we would use lemons. Makes really great lemonade and jellys/marmelades. The disadvantage is that the fruits are small, so more work to process large quantities. Still worth growing if you like lemons, just because they are so productive and fruit over very long season. There is a variegated type of calamondin that is vary beautiful/decorative tree as well as getting the fruits.
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I grow both. I’m keeping the sunquat because it looks so nice and ditching the calomondins because they aren’t as good as the alternatives. Calomondin fruit looks really neat, segmented and peelable like a mini mandarin. It’s quite sour though, most wouldn’t like the taste. I eat them whole, I think they are pretty good but I prefer kumquats. Calomondin does taste like sour orange more than true lemon.
As calomondin trees grow, their “miniature” look is lost and they look much like any other landscape bush. They would make a good bonsai, and I’m thinking about doing this with mine rather than tossing them.
Sunquats are pretty because the fruit is perfectly round and yellow. They taste like ordinary lemon to me. I’m keeping mine in a small container because I like the look and I use the fruit.
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IMHO sunquat is not worth growing. You get a giant kumquat
like fruit without a lot of flavor. How many watery satsuma sized kumquat
do you want to eat? Me, not many.
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To me, a sunquat has the pulp flavor of kumquat, which isn't all that great, with the mild character of tangerines. Not sweet, but very tolerably sour, and sort of bland. Skin is sweet but thick and chewy-meaty.
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Looks like sunquat is being damned by faint praise.
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Looks like sunquat is being damned by faint praise.
Haha indeed! I still see a bit of hope with the Calamondin
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JoeReal used to make a kick ass Calamondin wine. Anyone heard from him lately?
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No, don’t know we’re he hang out now. I think Joe is not in citrus only, he got all kinds the stuff growing.
With the greening problem a lot of members are going in different directions, like avo,s, mangoes, etc.in California. Like me I grow the finest in citrus but I also grow a ton of other stuff.
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I’ve seen joe real posting on growingfruit.org
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Calamondins make an incredibly tasty pie. I use my favorite Lemon Meringe recipe and substitue Calamondin juice. Wonderful! You can make some tasty cakes as well. The juice can be used in drinks, smoothies, etc. The tree is very cold hardy.
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I haven't heard from him lately but just remembered that I still had a bottle of calamondin wine in the back of my fridge he gave me when I visited him in Cali. Good stuff!
(https://i.postimg.cc/2bnj1m2Q/20190330-212906.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/2bnj1m2Q)
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Nice, I still have two bottles he sent me. Empty now, but they were great. :)
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I had a bottle of Hibiscus wine from Joe Real. Excellent.
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Calamondins are awesome if you like tart fruit. My Filipino friends squeeze the juice over their Pancit noodles.
I don’t like Tart fruit but I grow Miracle fruit which makes sour taste sweet so I make calamansi ade, calamansi+ water+ice and just take a Miracle Fruit before drinking and it makes the best juice.
I find the taste and aroma of the Calamansi one of the best amongst citrus but it is so Tart that I can’t eat it out of hand.
Because of its extremely tart flavor, it is my number one favorite antioxidant and flavoring agent to add acid balance to my fresh squeezed Sugarcane juice. The Calamansi juice prevents the juice from turning brown and also gives the Sugarcane juice a fantastic flavor.
My major issue with Calamansi is their small size and their high seed count.
Simon
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(https://i.postimg.cc/56SWRKHM/20190409-111007.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/56SWRKHM)
This is our 23 yo tree. I love calamondins whether we use it for ice water to drench up with or to add the squeezed juice for cooking.
I personally eat them on-hand after hand-picking them. I love the sourness.
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Damn, that’s a huge tree. Can you even harvest the fruit at the top? I guess with so much fruit, it doesn’t matter if some goes to waste. Thanks for sharing the picture.
Simon
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I bought my 3 gallon Calamondin about 1.5 years ago. It's tripled in size and blossoms every couple of months all year long. It's very prolific and puts out bunches, so branches need support at times when loaded with fruit. It does ripen fairly fast, but I've found that if I let the fruit ripen to to the point where it's falling off or coming off with little resistance, the taste is both sweet and sour and can be eaten straight. Ripened Calamondin juice and rind mixed with powdered sugar and a little butter makes a really great cake glazing. A wedge also makes a good garnish to a glass of ice water or glass of beer. I've acquired 18 varieties of citrus trees in my greenhouse in the past couple of years. A productive little Calamondin is nice to have around while I'm learning how to take care of the other trees so they will also grow up and bear fruit.
(https://i.postimg.cc/mzMJkjG1/IMG-20190407-154520294-HDR.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/mzMJkjG1)
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I started a collection of sour culinary citrus and calamondin is a great one. I got the whole range meyer lemon, sour orange, key lime, persian lime, sunquat and calamondin.