Hi-Chew – Golden Shikuwasa

Japan has always been quite successful in building up an air of exclusivity around certain regional products that they have. In particular, fruits and produce of certain regions are touted as superior, high quality or very unique when they come from certain regions. There is a bit of truth to this; they take a lot of effort in breeding and cultivating with special techniques to create regional varieties of fruit that are indeed very different. If you’ve ever had an actual kyoho grape or the Japanese muscats, you would understand that it’s not all just marketing hype, and there is some substances behind the claims.

Today we are looking at a fruit that hails from the region of Okinawa. The Shikuwasa fruit is an interesting creature indeed. From the months of July to October, it maintains the deep green skin, giving it the appearance of a lime on the outside. In this unripe form it’s also sour. From November to January, the fruit ripens and the skin changes to a yellow, golden colour, and has more of a sweetness, rather than just sour. That’s also where the term golden, or kugani comes in, which means mature. In this case it refers to a ripened shikuwasa fruit. It’s fascinating learning about this fruit, and how the ideal time to harvesting is anywhere between August to January, depending on the flavour you want, and for what purpose (jams, juices, garnish etc).

The appearance is very one note. The inside is a rich golden colour, while the outside is almost the same, but a slightly milder hue. Appearance wise it’s nothing special, apart from the very calming shade of orange yellow that it is.

The smell at first brought me back to my childhood, when my family would use that kumquat mix that looked like marmalade, but was supposed to be mixed with water and consumed to soothe the throat. It has a very strong citrus smell, but more like that rind smell than anything. The taste is not too far off from the smell; it isn’t a particularly sweet citrus fruit, so it makes sense that it has a more complex flavour. It has just enough bitterness to remind me of the peel or rind off a lime, but enough sweetness and tartness that it doesn’t at any point make me pucker or make me grimace at the bitterness. It’s balanced in a way that works.

While the lemon Hi-Chews I’ve had in the past are basically just sour and sweet in what seems to be equal measure, this one is a bit more complex. The only thing that works against this is that the citrus is strong enough that after about two pieces you can feel the acid working. I’m pretty sure if I had another piece I would get that dread citrus burn on my tongue. It kind of feels like I just sucked on half a lime. Not that I do that often. Or ever.

For fans of grapefruit, lime or the less sweet citrus fruits, I would recommend this supposedly limited time flavour. It’s pretty close to what I expect from the real fruit, and it’s worth giving it a go at least once. If you’re not a fan of trying interesting new flavours, particularly of the citrus kind, then don’t worry you probably aren’t missing out on too much.