In late December, I decided to do a bit of holiday shopping for myself, and some good fresh fruit was certainly on the list. One of the few things I like about winter is the variety of fruit that comes into season in various parts of the country, though one does have to be enterprising to locate some of it.
I was eager to get some fresh yuzu, and since my container tree (a 2-foot grafted tree) has done well, but is nowhere close to fruit-bearing age, I decided to see if I could find some online. In my investigations, I came across an organic farm out in California, called White Dove Passion Fruit Farm. They have a nice variety of fresh fruit available at various times, though I'm sure that local demand probably means that one would need to be timely in ordering. I was especially intrigued by their selection of feijoa and rare citrus. I ordered some yuzu from them, and this turned out to be quite a treat.
Yuzu has been cultivated in Japan for more than a thousand years; their are records of yuzu cultivation in China before then. Far more recently, yuzu have come into vogue in gourmet circles elsewhere in the world, and it's a fruit that certainly deserves its' formidable reputation. Reminiscent of the finer points of several other citrus fruits - a general lemon-like flavor (but not as sour), easy to peel and very juicy (like a tangerine), with a hint of a spicy aftertaste (like a key lime), and a faint trace of grapefruit bitterness (not enough to be an annoyance, but rather a quality that lends extra complexity to the flavor), I found yuzu to be fantastic. The fruit is intensely fragrant, with a slightly spicy lemon-meets-grapefruit aroma, and I will need to look into some citrus recipes to try with the new batch that I've ordered; the rich flavor of yuzu is suitable for both sweet and savory uses, and should offer a flavor quite distinct from other citrus.
Yuzu's lone drawback is its' extraordinary seediness - a common issue in papeda citrus (sudachi, shangjuan [ichang lemon], kabosu, kaffir lime, and some rarely eaten fruits like khasi, biasong and ichanderins are all papedas or papeda hybrids with various other citrus). I decided to work around this by planting the large and numerous seeds, so perhaps I'll have a nice crop of seedlings in another month or so.
As for White Dove Passion Fruit Farm, I have since placed some additional orders with them. Their customer service, selection, and fruit quality is top-notch. Even if it is cross-country, it is wonderful to find a source for quality rare fruit.
