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I recently purchased a fruit, which is very similar to an orange but slightly different in taste, size and color. The fruit I purchased is about 3 inches in diameter, and has a reddish orange peel and a rich sweet citrus taste. Its internal structure is exactly like that of an orange. Is there is any such variety of oranges? Or it is an entirely different fruit? One of my friend also told me that it wasn't an orange, but wasn't able to recall the fruit's name.

I went to market again but could not find it. I don't know its name. What it is called? I wasn't able to find it on fruits stores on the Internet. If anybody knows what it is then please let me know. Its rich taste is unforgettable. I would love to know what fruit it is. It's neither grapefruit nor blood oranges.

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  • If my question is not according to the FAQ of seasoned advice then let me know where I can ask about it.
    – Sunishtha Singh
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 15:13
  • Grapefruit? Blood orange?
    – Peter Taylor
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 15:20
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    If possible, having a picture of the fruit (possibly with the inside showing) would probably help a lot.
    – Kareen
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 15:22
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    What about the skin - was it thick and fleshy, or thin? Was it easy or difficult to peel? Was the skin color uniform or patchy? You said the outside was reddish-orange... was the inside reddish at all? It could be a blood orange, and not all blood oranges are dark red inside either.
    – matikin9
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 21:41
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    The main small orange hybrids are Satsuma, Mandarin, Tangerine and Clementine. The full list is here, you might have more luck translating if you start with the scientific name: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus#Hybrids_and_cultivars
    – vwiggins
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 10:11

7 Answers 7

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There are hundreds of varieties of citrus fruits, in a great variety of colors, sizes (and very occasionally, even different shapes). There is really no fundamental difference between the various citrus fruits--they all cross breed and hybridize extremely readily.

It is possible if you post a photo that someone might recognize the cultivar, but other than that all that can really be said is that you have a citrus fruit.

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A small, sweet citrus like a Clementine, but with seeds?

Tangerine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine

Of course... as others have said, we could do this all day. We are talking marketing right now rather than botany.

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Perhaps you're talking about clementines?

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  • the link you provided is having images likewise to the fruit, but couldn't found what it is called in India.
    – Sunishtha Singh
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 15:45
  • hey the link you have given is a seedless citrus fruit, but what i had was having seeds but lesser and not necessarily in every segments.
    – Sunishtha Singh
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 15:57
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    While most clementines are seedless, I've had a few that aren't. Like SAJ14SAJ said, all of these citrus fruits can reproduce with each other, so drawing boundaries between them is difficult.
    – chaosentity
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 16:05
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Given the size, there's a fairly good chance it's some variety of mandarin orange. This includes the clementines and tangerines already mentioned, as well as the zillions of kinds of satsumas and many others. It's quite likely that if you can find good, ripe oranges of any of these varieties, you'll like them, even if they're not the exact same cultivar as what you had. Just look around for small oranges, or I suppose see if Google translate gets a Hindi name right.

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Did it have a bump at the stem end? It could be a tangelo.

Or, if the flesh inside was slightly pink, it could be a Cara Cara orange.

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Finally I came to know its called "kinu" in India.

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It's called Malta as far as I can understand from the description you gave.

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    Don't think so. Malta appears to be a blood orange (the flesh itself is red).
    – Cascabel ♦
    Commented Nov 29, 2013 at 18:08
  • i agree with @Jefromi
    – Sunishtha Singh
    Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 18:08

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