Riding the Citrus Trail:When is a Mandarin a Tangerine?Today, there ar - PDF document

Riding the Citrus Trail:When is a Mandarin a Tangerine?Today, there are literally hundreds of commercially recog-used interchangeably. Here,we outline the key types and The mandarin,group of edible citrus. World-wide mandarin production isthe Western market are thereaching Europe. From there, they were taken across theAtlantic Ocean to the New World courtesy of the travelersand traders of the late 19th century.Tangerines:The name ÒTangerineÓ comes from Tangiers,the capital of Morocco, where the first shipment of tanger-1840s. ÒTangerÓ literally means pertaining to Tangiers.tangerine and mandarin. However, in the flavor and fra-grance industry, critical differences exist between thenology, which makes it even harder to come to grips withthe larger, sweeter mandarins,while ÒchŸÓ is used for smallersour varieties. To overcomethis problem in the Unitedgerine. Moreover, the samelocation. A classic and widely used example is the Ortanique,climates Ñ from desert, semi-tropical to sub-tropical Medi-terranean conditions Ñ has enabled them to be grown in Mandarin processing in Uruguay (Source: Treatt plc). despite a wet, generally cloudy climate it is now possible to harvest mandarin-type fruit for 12months of the year, due to careful selection of rootstock andcultivar selection. Conversely, the fruit itself is quite suscep-tible to damage when compared with oranges, for example.varied. Typical uses are extensive in both the flavor andfragrance industry. Here, some of the many types of man-Green, yellow and red mandarin oils are three distinctcommercial products derived from the same fruit. Greenmandarin oil, produced in Europe and South America, ismuch coveted by the perfumery industry. The fruit arepicked when immature (around the size of a walnut) to allowthe remaining fruit to grow to maturity. Yellow mandarin oil,the next stage of maturity after green, is used commonly inboth flavor and fragrance applications and is generally re-garded as a Sicilian product. The acidic juice breaking downthe green chlorophyll during the production process en-hances the yellow color of the oil. Finally, the mature redmandarin fruit provides the commonly known cold-pressedred mandarin oil, which is more frequently used in the flavorrather than the fragrance industry.Sicily, is distilled mandarin oil. This material is derivedfrom the production of cold-pressed mandarin peel oil, andconsists of recovering oil from the water streams used inacidic juice and produced by distilling the oil away from thethe crop has finished maturing). It is manufactured from thesteam distillation of the leaves and prunings, and yieldsaround 2 kg of oil per ton of leaves. The principle componentof the essential oil is dimethyl anthranilate, and it is under-The two GLC traces (Figure 1) show the composition of a-Terpinene is typically presentat ~4 percent in Chinese tangerine oil; a level of ~17trace levels in Chinese tangerine oil. Also evident from theOne of the problems involving essential oils from the manyquality. As a result, the user may need to adjust formula-tions to achieve the desired consistency. Consistency of Mandarin OilTangerine Oil Figure 1. Mandarin oil vs. tangerine oil Tangerines have a distinctive, slightly tart flavor variation and what may constitute adul-However, in general terms, seasonalto ppm or less. Adulteration can beuct of the huge orange juice industry,oil production. On occasion, it is pos-detection of enhanced levels of in particular, mandarins and namely by boosting the production theres a lot more to these Address correspondence to Daemmon ReeveBury St. Edmunds IP32 6NL, England.