Amazing Green Orange Variety??

[Ben1030]

I wonder if anyone has come across these before?

We holiday in southern Italy most septembers and enjoy the occasional visit to the local market. Every year in late September the stalls are full of these green oranges. I've never seen them anywhere before, I wish we could buy/grow them at home!

They are green on the outside but orange on the inside! They are seedless, easy peel, really juicy with a slight tary flavour - they are perfect! They do turn a yellow/orange if you keep them too long.

[AkionTotocha]

Aomikan?

Aomikan is just 'green tangerine', unripe tangerine, but all oranges are green outside orange inside when unripe, the flavour will be from the variety, mixed with the sourness of being unripe

Iirc, Stephen Fry on QI said "all oranges are picked green and processed to turn orange" or "when there are flowers on the plants, it sends chlorophyll to the flowers which also turns the skin green" I can't remember which....

But Aomikan are like you describe, a little tarter but they're unripe marmalade tangerines...

[edit]Buy any sweet clementine/tangerine bush, grow it inside in the winter (or grow one from seed like me) and in September, pick the fruits when they're slightly squishy but still green

[mothhawk]

It's temperature that turns all oranges from their ripe green state, to orange. As the weather cools in autumn the colour changes, but if they are grown where the temperature does not drop enough, they stay green even when ripe. Florida oranges are artificially chilled after picking.

The USA used to allow orange skins to be coloured with red dye, but I don't know if they still do.

[Nicos]

Oh...gosh...this is all new to me!
Very interesting!

[mothhawk]

Another fact for you. An orange is a hybrid cross between a pomelo and a mandarin.

It gets its green genes from its mum, the pomelo

edit - all citrus fruits are apparently very promiscuous and will cross pollinate any that as much as bat an eye at them

[AkionTotocha]

Pomelo are delicious. Mostly over now but if you're a fan of grapefruit they're worth trying, even if you only like grapefruits a little bit. Look for them in Asian stores in January.

[Ben1030]

I realised that all oranges start off green but surely they would normally taste unripe when picked green. I actually picked a green one on holiday, it was horrid!

Are these just normal tangerines or a slightly different variety? I'm currently growing 3 citrus varieties myself (with varying success) but never seen any tangerines for sale.

Why doesn't anyone sell them green here?

[boatsman]

I have a dwarf tangerine tree that is full of blossom at present. After the flowers have been pollinated the fruit is green at first and then it changes to the orange colour of the tangerine. This doesn't involve any cooling, the exact opposite in fact, as the temperature outside is about 20 C. (68F)

[Ben1030]

Have you tried any just before they change orange? Is the fruit seedless and easy to peel? Have you got a picture of your tree out of interest?

[mothhawk]

I have a dwarf tangerine tree that is full of blossom at present. After the flowers have been pollinated the fruit is green at first and then it changes to the orange colour of the tangerine. This doesn't involve any cooling, the exact opposite in fact, as the temperature outside is about 20 C. (68F)

Yes, I think tangerines and mandarins are orange when ripe, but oranges can be ripe and green unless thay get that slight temp drop.