Sanbokan vs NZ lemonade

[sc4001992]

Can anyone that has tasted both the Sanbokan and NZ Lemonade tell me how the taste compares. Which one do you like more.
I'm trying to decide which one to keep, I tasted the NZ Lemonade and its not bad, but my Sanbokan fruits are still green but much larger than the NZ lemonade and the branches seems much sturdier.

[poncirsguy]

I have eaten 46 NZ lemons from my in ground NZL'  They are tasty when fully ripe.  I have not eaten a Sanboken.  Keep them both or wait till you have eaten both from well mature trees.  The fruit gets better with tree age.

NZL is tree to left and it has 31 lemons this year.  We will see if they are better than last years on a smaller tree.

[Millet]

I once grew a Sanbokan, but it was so long ago I no longer remember the taste.  If it was something special I would probably remember. Anyway, after tasting  the fruit I must not have thought it was anything special, because I got rid of the tree.  I do have a New Zealand Lemonade tree (NZL) which produces heavily.  When NZL is eaten while still a little green, it has a pleasant mild lemon taste,  when eaten fully yellow, it has a sweet mild lemon taste, quite close to lemonade. It is a keeper.   

[sc4001992]

Thanks for the feedback. I did have a couple of fruits on the NZ grafts last year and this year. I seems to now taste much better than last year's fruit.
I will keep the grafted branches and maybe graft it on an another tree. My family seems to like the taste of the juice.

My Sanbokan grafted branches have grown larger than the NZ branches and have 3 large fruits now that are still green. Since these branches were so bushy I'm debating if I should cut them way back. Fruit is large and it looks similar to Sumo.

[sc4001992]

My taste comparison of the two fruits.

I picked the Sanbokan today with the NZ Lemonade to do a taste comparision. This is the first time I tasted the Sanbokan fruit and I was surprised at the taste. The Sanbokan flesh was more like a grapefruit and it looks like my fruits may have grown too large and might have been a little over ripe. The taste was sweet like a Oroblanco grapefruit (eaten out of hand) with no sour/acid taste, I liked it so I will keep the grafts. I also squeezed the juice from each fruit to compare the taste of the juice. The Sanbokan juice tasted like a sweet grapefruit, the NZ lemonade was also sweet but has a slightly different taste that is unique (lemonaid). Also the NZ lemonade has more juice for the size of the fruit.

I will post some photos of the fruits later to show the size of the fruits and how many seeds they have. If anyone would like to grow a few seeds from either one send me a PM (USA only) and I can send for cost of shipping.

[sc4001992]

Here's the photos of the fruits I tasted today.

[AndrewAZ]

I have heard it before called sanbokan grapefruit, so that makes sense.

[sc4001992]

AndrewAZ, yes I agree. I heard it called sour orange, lemon, and grapefruit.

This is the variety from CCPP Budwood (UCR), and it does match the description of the UCR variety database and Wikipedia.

[Millet]

SC4001992, my Sanbokan  was bumpy just like the picture you posted.  That is all that I really remember of the fruit.  When I decided to get rid of the Sanbokan tree it must have been 6 - 9 years ago. 

[sc4001992]

Millet, I liked the taste of the Sanbokan so I will keep it on my trees. I also notice that the Sanbokan is more vigorous than the NZ Lemonade.
Both of my grafts are a little over 2years old and the Sanbokan branches are much better looking/heathly. The NZ Lemonade branches are still small and do not look as healthy even though they are grafted on the same trees. Take a look at some photos I just took recently.

[Millet]

SC400, I don't think the size of the limbs has any thing to do with each cultivars health.  Rather the difference is due to their natural genealogy.

[sc4001992]

Yes, I agree. I meant to say NZ lemon branches are slow growing and not as vigorous for me so I don't know if I will get much fruits on these branches. I did get 2 fruits on the smaller NZ lemon branch (2nd photo with white tape) and about 8 fruits on the other larger grafts (both are 2yrs old).

The Sanbokan is a faster growing variety, the 4th photo is a small scion I grafted on 11/4/20, you can see how much it grew since I grafted it last Nov.