Oroblanco Delivery or Pickup

Oroblanco means "white gold" in Spanish, which is an apt description of the fruit's pale-yellow flesh. It's a new kid on the block as far as fruits go since it has only been available on the market since the early 1980s. The idea to develop the oroblanco already started in the 1950s, though, when two citrus breeders at the University of California realized that the regular grapefruit doesn't sweeten as it should when grown outside the desert in California. This is due to a lack of heat in the main winter citrus season.

So, they set out to create a hybrid that would be sweeter. In what turned out to be a wise choice, they chose to cross the acidless Siamese Sweet pomelo with the seedy, white-fleshed Duncan grapefruit. For those who may not know, the grapefruit itself is a hybrid fruit that resulted from a crossing between a pomelo and an orange. This cross-breeding happened naturally and by accident, though. 

The crossing of the Siamese Sweet pomelo and the Duncan grapefruit worked well, as the pomelo's rather insipid taste lowered the acidity of the oroblanco, whereas the Duncan grapefruit provided an intense, distinctive taste.

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The oroblanco is round or oval-shaped and inherited the thick rind of its pomelo parent. It's therefore advisable to look for bigger and heavier oroblancos when you're shopping to ensure that you're left with a decently sized fruit once you've peeled it. Although the Oroblanco is sweet and lacks the distinctive bitterness of the grapefruit, the white membrane that separates the fleshy segments can be rather bitter, so you may want to discard this part of the fruit.

The outer peel of the oroblanco is green, which had rather negative implications for the fruit's popularity in the market. Many buyers are unaccustomed to oroblanco and passed it by, as they assumed a green citrus fruit larger than a lime to be unripe. Sales were so bad in the U.S. that producers stopped planting the fruit. 

But, the history of the oroblanco luckily didn't end there. The fruit was introduced into the Israeli market, where it was marketed under the name Sweetie and described as "sweet when green." The campaign was successful, and Israeli consumers largely accepted the fruit. Subsequently, the fruit was also exported to Japan, where it has been very favorably received.

Apart from the oroblanco's delicious piney flavor, it also is seedless. This is due to the fact that the Duncan grapefruit is a tetraploid, which means it has twice the usual number of chromosomes, while the Siamese Sweet pomelo is a regular diploid. The crossing of the two resulted in a triploid offspring with three sets of chromosomes. It's this genetic unevenness that has caused the seedlessness of the oroblanco.

The oroblanco is mostly eaten raw and has a delicious taste that offers the perfect balance between sweet and tart. Oroblancos add a sugary, tangy flavor to green and fruit salads and can also be used to make delectable marmalade and jams. In addition, you can use the juice of the oroblanco in dressings, marinades, and sorbets, and it also makes for a zingy and fresh cocktail ingredient.

As oroblanco contains high levels of vitamin C, and also other vitamins such as A, E, and B, you can help fight colds and other infections by either eating the fruit or adding some slices to hot tea. Apart from its pleasant taste, sipping on some oroblanco tea will also soothe and heal a sore throat.