【みかん・mikan】clementine
みかん are sweeter when they are small and firm.
Do you peel the skin and pop them in your mouth, or do you pick the rind until they’re rind-free and smooth? It’s tempting to peel all the white rind, but it has nearly the same amount of vitamin C as the flesh. So to get the most out of a clementine, better to save time and eat them with the rinds.
There is a myth that massaging the clementine before peeling and eating them will make them sweeter, which is not false.
Massaging them does decrease their acidity (breaks the citric acid), so they will seem sweeter, but it doesn’t necessarily change the original quality or sweetness (or clementine producers will be out of business!).
Japanese clementines or 温州(うんしゅう)みかん (unshū mikan) originally started growing in 鹿児島 Kagoshima, formerly called 薩摩 (Satsuma).
Today, 和歌山 (Wakayama) Prefecture harvests the most, yeilding about 160,000 ton a year.
