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Close-up of green citrus peel with cold water droplets
  • Family
  • 香酸柑橘

Citrus

Squeezed over the food, never peeled and eaten.

The Japanese kitchen has a citrus category of its own: fruit too sour, and often too bitter, to eat, used only for the juice and the peel. Japanese has a collective word for them, kosan kankitsu, and that is the line this family follows. A mikan is peeled and eaten; a sudachi is squeezed over the food. The question when choosing between them is rarely how sour they are, but whether you are after the juice or the aroma in the peel.

Sensory analysis

Pyramid and character

Aroma

from the peel

  • peel
  • blossom
  • acidity

Taste

on the tongue

  • acidity
  • bitterness
  • faint sweetness

Finish

what lingers

  • fresh
  • short
  • clean

Background

Facts

The name
kosan kankitsu, 香酸柑橘, literally aroma-and-acid citrus; older Japanese called them su-mikan, vinegar mandarins
Classification
yuzu, sudachi, kabosu, shikuwasa, and daidai are the ones found in a Japanese kitchen, but Japan counts more than thirty kinds in the group; mikan, iyokan, and the other eating citrus do not belong here
Harvest
most are picked green and unripe, because that is when the acidity peaks and the peel smells strongest; left on the tree they turn yellow and milder, and are then used for other things
Distinction
the choice is rarely between sour and less sour but between juice and peel; a yuzu yields almost no juice but everything in aroma, a kabosu the other way around
Storage
whole fruit keeps a couple of weeks refrigerated; bottled juice keeps for months but loses the aroma of the peel, which is the volatile half
Outside Japan
fresh Japanese citrus is hard to find outside Japan, and what is sold is usually bottled juice

Members of the family

Varieties in the family

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