APPEARANCE 
Squatty orange fruit with loose, slightly bumpy skin, bright orange flesh and no seeds.
AROMA
Sweet and fresh tangerine scent with the slightest acidity.
TEXTURE
Nice amount of juice to refresh the mouth but probably won’t drip anywhere. No seeds! No seeds! No seeds!
TASTE
Lovely sweet flavor, though not overly complex. Light acidity, which is great or this would be fairly boring.
OVERALL
Perfect snack fruit! Easy peazy zipper peel. I have eaten so many types of citrus lately that I am getting to be a bit of a pro at peeling them. Look at that photo over there. I swear it practically just ended up that way without me even trying. It’s like I’m some sort of fruit peeling artist or something. Spooky. Anyway, this satsuma is also pleasantly seed-free with a fresh, light flavor. For all of you on a diet, this is basically healthy candy. I don’t tend to look for healthy candy myself, but who knows – maybe you do. You fruit lovers can be wacky.
NOTES
So I have been asked a few times now about the difference between a mandarin, a tangerine, an orange, etc. I cannot tell you the hours of grief this question has given me. Fruit naming is a mess! (Recall the rangpur lime and calamansi lime that aren’t actually part of the lime family – nice.) Here’s what I can tell you with very little certainty: All tangerines, clementines and satsumas are mandarins. All mandarins are oranges. All oranges are citrus. And all citrus are berries. Yeah – I dunno. I have a headache now. Shush. Hand me the satsumacello.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Follow me on Pinterest
laura // Jan 23, 2010 at 7:52 am
I just tried this last week.
Mine had seeds! Mine had seeds! Mine had seeds!
Boo for accidentally buying the mutant variety…
Fruit Maven // Jan 23, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Seeds? Oh no. I think there are actually a hundred or so different variety of satsumas and they are rarely indicated (that i’ve seen). So it makes sense that some have seeds. Spit them unassumingly at people passing by. It will make it more fun to endure them.
Keri // Jan 28, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Or you can plant the seeds and have a lovely houseplant.
Wash the seeds in lukewarm water and let them dry before planting. My manual instructs to mix 10% sand into the potting soil (I imagine for aeration), plant in a pot, give a good watering and then let it dry completely before watering again. If you cover the pot with a plastic bag (poke airholes in it), the manual says it would take about 14 days to water it next. but mist the top soil for humidity.
something I would probably do would be to place the pot on a small bed of rocks or pebbles in a tray and water the tray, but not enough for the plant to sit in water. the pot sits on the rocks that sit in the water.
i just got magical honeybells, so i’m going to try this with their seeds.
Fruit Maven // Feb 12, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Yes, so if you’re classy, do what @keri says (sounds fun in that “yes, YOU should do that kind of way). If you’re not so classy, then do what I say.
Mary // Dec 29, 2010 at 8:29 am
We’ve got a satsuma tree, so I pretty much grew up eating these. A family friend had a tree on which she grew the biggest ones I have ever seen, and they tasted just wonderful. I used to go through literally bagfuls of them all by myself!