New Zealand lemonade fruit

[AndrewAZ]

Was very excited that I had a ripe fruit on the ground today.  Brought it in and ate that bad boy up.  I think it fits true to the name.  It was 60% sour lemon, 40% sweet (I couldn't detect any mandarin flavor) and it had a lime after taste.
I think it is just a tad too sour for general public, but, it was tantalizingly close.  For all of us fruit nuts, I think it's a pretty good fruit.  Oh, and it was pretty juicy.

[martweb]

Confused, as I read that it had no sourness. How is the rind?

[sc4001992]

I grow the new zealand lemon (grafted branches). I picked some fruits to taste it again today, it does not have any sour/tartness that I can detect. It is sweet, texture is firm/crunchy and it is one of the best lemons I have.

I took some photos of my fruits, had this grafted for 3 yrs now and it tastes the same, no sourness.

[poncirsguy]

What color is your fruit when ripe.  Any pictures.

[sc4001992]

I also asked my wife what she thought of the taste:
-Sweet ?
-Mild sweet?
-Sour ?

Her answer was it tastes like a lemon, but no acid/sour taste, just mild sweet taste..

[poncirsguy]

My NZL fruits are mildly sour and mildly sweet.

[AndrewAZ]

Interesting.   This is my first fruit ever.  I may need to wait a while until the fruit gets better.  Also, the are 2 still green on the tree.  Maybe this was just a bad one.  Looking forward to less sourness!

[sc4001992]

Andrew, I think you might be right. If it's the first fruit on your tree, it could be a little more sour than one from an older tree. If I remember the first time I ate one of these NZ lemon from my graft, I didn't think it was anything special and it may have been a little sour. Now in it's 3rd year of fruiting, all the fruits seems to be very good tasting with no sour/tartness to me.

[JSea]

They can be left on the tree and they just keep getting sweeter. It's common here to harvest some even in the middle of Summer after the "recommended" Winter harvest time.

If left on the tree this late, the mandarin flavour is a lot more pronounced.

They are such an amazing fruit. If only there was a kumquat that had the same flavour...

[martweb]

The rind is purely lemony or also some mandarin overtones?
BTW I will get my NZL plant in May and then will cross it with Kumquat. So maybe your dream will come true.

[Millet]

I go along with Poncirusguy,  my NZL fruit are mildly sweet and very mildly sour.

[sc4001992]

Ok, I cut up some more NZ lemon and tasted it again, also compared it to a few other fruits that were ripe.

The NZ lemon is mildly sweet, and maybe very very mildly sour, I don't really taste the sour part much. I may be getting use to the taste of lemon so it does not seem sour..

[Millet]

sc4001992  looking at your picture shown above, the NZL rind looks to still be green, and not completely mature.

[sc4001992]

yup, you're right, I picked them before the critters get to them. It could hang on the tree another month, but I also wanted the grafted branches to grow more so I picked off all the fruits.

[martweb]

sc4001992  looking at your picture shown above, the NZL rind looks to still be green, and not completely mature.

But how does the rind taste and smells like?

[sc4001992]

I just checked on another fruit, the skin/rind on it is thin, soft like a mandarin, it has a slight lemon taste but not really sour at all.

Millet, I do notice that of all the fruits on my multi-grafted tree, the NZ lemon rind does not turn fully yellow immediately, always seems to have some area that looks greenish on the side that is covered with leaves. When it gets fully yellow the rind is softer and almost seems too ripe to me. My fruits will look like the photos I showed (mostly yellow with some green area) while the other fruits such as the Sumo, Ponkan, Kiyomi, lemons all turn completely color (orange, yellow) even if they are partially covered by leaves.

[martweb]

I just checked on another fruit, the skin/rind on it is thin, soft like a mandarin, it has a slight lemon taste but not really sour at all.

So not the intense flavor like regular lemons? No mandarine flavor?

[sc4001992]

"So not the intense flavor like regular lemons? No mandarine flavor?"

->No.

[poncirsguy]

eating a regular lemon is like eating battery acid, no flavor pure sour.

[martweb]

eating a regular lemon is like eating battery acid, no flavor pure sour.

I am not speaking about the flesh but the rind.

[poncirsguy]

eating a regular lemon is like eating battery acid, no flavor pure sour.

I am not speaking about the flesh but the rind.

The NZL rind is very mildly sweet and probably nutritious.  I eat my rinds.  They are not good for zest.