Japanese citrus season - iyokan いよかん

The outside looks like an orange....

... but the inside looks like a mandarin.



Such is the wonder of the iyokan (いよかん), the shiny orange fruit flooding supermarkets around here lately. The price of your standard orange has risen sharply from the standard 99yen to as much as 178yen! Terrible! Meanwhile, iyokan can often be picked up for as little 50yen, and never seems to rise beyond 99yen.

Sadly, the ones I've had so far have been a little dry and withered for my liking. I appreciate the ease of peeling, and the best ones have a tart twang to them that's more interesting than the sweeter dekopon, but until the king of iyokans comes along to prove me wrong, I can't help but think of them as a poor man's orange.