I didn't even notice the bear. Just saw the words 'Sugar Belle' on the package and remembered that they were good last year, so picked up a package.

Except for the leaf-and-stem satsumas, I'm probably not going to buy any more citrus until the Sky Valley Navels and Sumos come out. 80% of the eat-out-of-hand citrus in our local grocery stores is worthless crap. Is it the long transportation time? Are they picked too early? Are they stored too long?

I saw those packs at Trader Joe’s recently, but did not buy them. I’ve never tried them.

I don't think you can beat the Minneola Tangelo in that category; we get them here in Guatemala a few weeks per year; and I always buy them. The problem with fruit quality due to harvest and transport is time to ship. Most US citrus travel by rail; while most international citrus travel by sea. We ship most of our Meyers by air; so they are at their peak; and will have a shelf life of 40-60 days. We sell our fruit to the shipper for 10 cents per fruit and they are sold at the destination for $2 or more; so there is enough profit to allow the air shipping which is about $1 per pound (3 lemons)

Hey johnmerr, where can I buy your citrus here on the east coast?

Hey Dave in NoVA, I agree about the most citrus in stores taste bad. Most times I buy a bag I end up wishing for my money back. I saw those sugar belles at trader joes and almost got a bag. I know I saw a sugar belle tree for sell somewhere online a few months ago, I'll have to go through my bookmarks and find the site. I'm waiting for whole foods to get the sumos in. My wife loves those. I like the taste of satsumas picked a little too early. Nice and tangy.

I tried sugar belles at a farmer's market two years ago and had a sample. I was not impressed with them. It was seedy and not sweet.

Dave, I bought one or two of those packages from TJ last year and they were fantastic. They were extremely fresh - so fresh, in fact, that those are the stems I used to graft five new little trees that I still have and that are growing well. I did like those quite a bit, but it was obvious from the look of the stems that they were newly picked. I think those tasted great, but do we know what exact variety they are? I have no idea.

I may be mis-remembering but I think some of our Canadian Citrus posters have Sugar Belles (maybe Brian and Amy)? I haven't seen or tried one of those but did try a couple Minneolas that I had found at an International supermarket not far from me and was amazed at how juicy and sweet those were (I think their country of origin was Peru). I ended up eating one out of hand and used the other in an orange chicken recipe that turned out fantastic. One huge fruit produced enough juice for the recipe (it was well over 1/4 cup) and I added some zest from a (unknown) mandarin that I had frozen earlier.

This was the plain old minneola -

Right now, my Shiranui/Sumo/Dekopan is a bit larger than the above minneola fruit and still has a few months to go!

johnmerr, I wonder why the Sky Valley Navels and the Sumo mandarins are really, really good then? They have to travel all the way across the country like all the other citrus. But maybe they get special handling and shipping since they are more expensive? Maybe they just maintain a better shelf life. I just don't know.

Jenny, I tried some Minneolas from Peru also. They were mediocre. I will have to wait for US Minneolas -- Florida ones seem best -- in the new year.

I’ve never heard of Sky Valley Navels. Is this also a patented name?

And yea, the growers in Canada have Sugarbelles. One of the Canadian online nurseries offer some hard to citrus like LeexNova too. I wish I could grow that and a Sugarbelle but I hardly see them offered

kvetchlambkin, Sky Valley Navels are a brand name of navels grown in a relatively small area of the San Joaquin valley in California. They are old trees and apparently on sour orange rootstock. Skin is a bit hard to peel, but they are very tasty. Only offered at Trader Joes. They should come out late December/early January. We're keeping our eyes out for them.