Good for you. I have a kinnow but i am not as successful as you. It is still in its original pot.
What you should try also is kishu mandarin. I believe that is sweeter than kinnow and easier to peel.

"Kinnow" is certainly quite good, but there are other, similarly intensely-flavored mandarins. (There are so many great-tasting mandarins that it can be hard to keep them all straight!)

"Kishu" has less prounounced acidity, so the fruits have more of a "citrus candy" flavor. (Although "Kishu" fruits are not bland or insipid -- they have enough acid to be quite pleasing to the palate.)

Bencelest,

Out of all the mandarins that we tasted at Gene Lester's place, I definitely thought the "Kishu" stood out from the rest of the pack as sort of a "different" tasting fruit. (Not so acid that you might feel that your mouth was about to melt after eating a few.)

One of the other mandarins that another visitor claimed had a distinctive flavor was the "Keraji", which a fellow tourer/taster claimed had a unique lemony taste. Sadly, by the time I sampled some "Keraji" my taste-buds were so burned out from all the acid that I couldn't get a good sense of the flavor.

Ashok:
Wait until you taste the clemenule from Spain that you got. You will ask no other but that! It is so juicy, sweet and so heavenly you would not ask any other.
But I hope you were successful grafting them. Eh?

You should also try the recently released "Golden Nugget" tangerine. Its the best of the ten or so tangerines that I have growing here in south Orange County, CA.

Here is a link that might be useful: golden nugget tangerine

Is it a tangerine or a mandarin? To me, there is a huge difference in flavor--tangerines are sweet-tart, and mandarins are just sweet, more like oranges. I love tangerines, but mandarins I could take or leave, just like oranges. My favorite tangerine is Dancy.
I wish I could taste the Kinnow and Golden Nugget, to see if I could fall for them too!
Carla in Sac

Sautesmom,

This is one of those somewhat tangled nomenclature issues.

*All* of these fruits are mandarins.

The term "tangerine" is sometimes informally used as a synonym for mandarin. However, sometimes the word is also used to describe a particular class of mandarins -- those with extremely orange-red skins, like "Dancy".

There are certainly many mandarins that are *never* referred to as tangerines that are quite sweet/tart. (Clementines would be one good example.)

It would be a bit of a drive from Sacramento, but there is an "open house" tour and citrus tasting at the U.C. Lindcove Field Station every January. There is also a tour of Gene Lester's private citrus collection (near Watsonville) every March. Both of these events offer the opportunity to taste many, many different kinds of citrus. (Although the "Gold Nugget" mandarin ripens quite late, and probably wouldn't be ready by January or March.)

Ashok:
I've been to Gene Lester's last year and this year but I don't recall he has a clemenule from Spain, although he has so many different citrus varieties he collected all over the world.
If I recall Joe Real said that this variety is not yet being sold to the public.
I maybe mistaken.

Bencelest,

Again, I don't know whether Gene has the "Nules" ... I don't remember seeing it there, but there are lots of things there that I haven't yet tasted! I bet Joe would know for sure.

By the way, as you may recall, the clementine that really got the attention of the crowd was the "Corsica #1" -- for some reason, people really gravitated to it this year. Yet another clementine to grow! (Maybe Gene will allow budwood collection next year.)

HereÂs the image of my clemenule

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And hereÂs the image of my clemenule fruit after they riped:

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Ashok:
I hope so.

Benny