Questions & Answers - Satsuma, What is an Satsuma Orange
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Question:
Answer:
Satsuma
[sat-SOO-muh] - A loose-skinned orange, it is a type of seedless
mandarin orange with thin skin. In most citrus producing areas, satsuma
mandarin is the preferred name, but satsuma tangerine is also used.  Grown in cool subtropical regions of
Japan, Spain, central China, Korea, Turkey, along the Black Sea in
Russia, southern South Africa, South America, and on a small scale in
central California and northern Florida. The world's largest satsuma
industry is located in southern Japan where climatic conditions are
favorable for the production of early ripening satsuma tangerines of
high quality. In the United States, it is grown mostly in the
southernmost parishes of Louisiana.
The fruit from a young tree averages 1.8
inches in diameter, approximately three-quarters the size of a tennis
ball. With its smooth, thin, lightly attached skin, satsumas have become
known as the "kid-glove or zipper-skin citrus" due to the ease with
which the skin can be removed and internal segments separated. Depending
on the weather and climate conditions, the fruit is harvested in the
early to mid-fall. The fruit is juicy and very sweet, low in acid, and
almost seedless, with an average of only 1.5 seeds per orange
History:
Satsuma mandarin may have originated in China but it was first reported
in Japan more than 700 years ago where it is now the major cultivar
grown. It was first introduced in the 1800's by early settlers to the
state along the banks of the Mississippi River near New Orleans. The 'Owari'
Satsuma arrived from Japan, first in 1876 and next in 1878. During the
period 1908-1911, nearly a million budded trees from 1908 to 1911 for
planting in the Gulf States. The first recorded introduction into the
United States was in Florida by George R. Hall in 1876. The name "satsuma"
is credited to the wife of a United States minister to Japan, General
Van Valkenberg, who sent trees home in 1878 from Satsuma, the name of a
former province, now Kagoshima Prefecture, on the southern tip of Kyushu
Island, where it is believed to have originated.
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