7 tips: how to avoid disappointing mandarins

They’re dirt cheap, but also dried out, not juicy and tasteless. Sometimes a net of mandarins is a stroke of genius; more often, you end up chewing on dry pieces with seeds. How can you spot bad mandarins? And which little mandarins are guaranteed to be good? Mandarin expert André shares his insider knowledge.

Dry mandarins with tough membranes, loose skin and a musty taste: André completely recognizes the frustrations surrounding mandarins. He knows how it works. Most mandarins are too old. Even if you bought them at the supermarket this afternoon? Absolutely, he says. ‘If the price of mandarins at the wholesale market is a little disappointing, the mandarins go into cold storage to wait for a better price. And that doesn’t improve them.’

How to avoid disappointing mandarins

To be honest: André knows so much about mandarins because he sells mandarins himself. Isn’t this a case of ‘we of the toilet duck’? A little, he admits. ‘Some time ago, we started Citrus Sebastia, importing mandarins directly from Valencia. In preparation, we researched the mandarin situation in Dutch supermarkets and at greengrocers. And, honestly, it’s pretty sad. The quality of what’s available varies greatly, more or less from day to day. One day you have delicious mandarins, and a few days later you get a dud at the same shop or market stall.’

1. Firm skin

How do you recognize a good mandarin? To start with: tight skin. ‘A fresh mandarin is juicy. It sits firmly in its skin, and the longer the mandarin has to wait, the looser that skin becomes because the mandarin loses moisture.’ Before you buy: take a quick look for wrinkles or feel whether the skin is loose – that doesn’t bode well.

2. Pay attention to the variety

The taste of a mandarin also depends on the variety. A generally recognized top variety: Clementines. These are small mandarins with thin skin. ‘Those mandarins have exactly the right combination of sweet and sour,’ says André. ‘We have Clemenules, from the Spanish town of Nules. They really grow the perfect little mandarins there. The location of the soil, so close to the sea, makes it the best place to grow citrus fruit.’ Other varieties taste different; they have thicker skin, more seeds or more of those thick white membranes: none of that is ideal.

3. Spit out the seeds or not?

Seeds or no seeds, does it make a difference? Seedless mandarins are available, and they’re more enjoyable to eat: you don’t have to spit out the seeds like a machine gun. André: ‘Seedless mandarins are natural; nothing has been modified or altered. You don’t have to be afraid of that.’

4. The right season

Spanish mandarins in May? Don’t buy them, says André. ‘The mandarin season in Spain runs from November through February. Mandarins early in the season are slightly less sweet; that changes as the season progresses. In February, our mandarin grower Javier stops picking, and the season is over. Sometimes you can still buy mandarins earlier or later in the year, but they are automatically of lower quality: stored for too long or picked too early.’

5. Crate, net, plastic bag

Some mandarins come in a small crate, most in one of those orange nets. Does that make a difference? According to André, no. ‘Mandarins need to breathe, so a plastic bag isn’t good. And they’re delicate, so they shouldn’t be crushed or bruised. But a small crate or a net most likely makes no difference at all.’

6. Green leaves

The greengrocer places fresh green leaves among the mandarins. Does that say anything about the quality? ‘Those leaves wilt quickly, so if you see green leaves, that could mean the mandarins are fresh,’ says André. ‘Brown leaves don’t automatically mean that the mandarins are old, by the way, and mandarins without a leaf aren’t bad either.’ In short: leaves look nice, but they aren’t always a quality guarantee.

7. Wrapped or with a sticker

And what about mandarins wrapped like a present, in a piece of crepe paper? Are those the very best? ‘It’s branding,’ says André. ‘We’re working on that too. We researched this among greengrocers, and they said that stickers on mandarins are especially useful. People stick them in their wallets and then know which mandarins they want to buy again next time.’ So not a quality guarantee in itself, but useful for remembering which mandarins taste good (and which don’t).

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