Japanese Lemonade (Ujukitsu)

A Lemony Fruit with the Naturally Sweet Sugar-Acid Balance of a Sweet Orange

While its distinctly lemony flavor will make you think it is a lemon hybrid, genetic testing has revealed that Ujukitsu actually contains zero true lemon ancestry! It is a centuries-old Japanese natural hybrid of Mandarin and Pummelo that pulled off the ultimate flavor magic trick—recreating the refreshing taste of fresh lemonade entirely through the genetics of sweet, mild-acid parents. Because it possesses the naturally balanced sugar-to-acid ratio of a sweet orange, you get that wonderfully unique lemony flavor completely free of the sharp, overwhelming acidity that makes lemons hard to eat fresh. You can easily peel the slices to eat them fresh out of hand, or squeeze it to enjoy the juice straight without ever needing to add sugar.

My Personal Take: Lemonade-type citrus fruits, including Ujukitsu and the New Zealand variety, are some of my absolute favorites because they deliver a delicious lemony flavor with a beautiful balance of sweetness and mild acidity. I love them so much that I've actually launched my own breeding project to try to create a new lemonade fruit variety. It would be wonderful to have these fruits available for a larger part of the citrus season. It will be interesting to see if California growers can successfully extend their harvest by planting both the New Zealand and Japanese varieties.

The Flavor & Sensory Experience

• The Orange-like Sugar Balance: It features a low total acidity paired with high natural sugars, perfectly mirroring the smooth, palatable balance of a sweet orange rather than a sour lemon.
• Versatile Fresh Eating: The exceptionally juicy, lemony flesh is mild enough to eat fresh straight out of hand, or it can be squeezed into a naturally sweet, ready-to-drink lemonade juice that requires absolutely no added sugar.

The Backyard Advantage

• Exceptional Freeze Resilience: Inheriting robust winter hardiness from its mandarin and pummelo parents, Japanese Lemonade (Ujukitsu) is field-proven to survive severe freezes down into the mid-10s Fahrenheit, easily outliving frost-sensitive true lemons.
• Premium Rootstock Selection: These trees are grafted onto a semi-dwarfing rootstock specifically chosen to impart high fruit quality.

Variety Specifications

Primed for Growth

• Container Size: Grown in a 4" x 4" x 8" air-pruning pot.
• Supercharged Roots: Air-pruning technology prevents root-binding, creating a dense, fibrous, and incredibly robust root system that eliminates transplant shock.
• Expertly Structured: Pruned early to develop a low, sturdy scaffold branch system, ensuring your citrus tree naturally grows into a beautiful, balanced shape.
• Rapid Establishment: Because of this superior root architecture, the tree won't stall out or hesitate—it is engineered to immediately anchor in and start pushing new growth the moment you plant it.

Certified Health & Shipping Compliance

• Elite Health Guarantee: Grafted in California inside a USDA APHIS-approved insect-resistant structure, this tree remains entirely within a secure, protected facility from grafting until it is boxed for delivery. This unbroken chain of biosecurity guarantees zero exposure to outside pests and utilizes certified, disease-free budwood from rigorously tested parent stock.
• Maximum Protection: This strict adherence to federal and state agricultural laws ensures you receive a structurally sound, perfectly healthy tree completely free of disease.
• 48-State Compliance: Because of these elite biosecurity standards, this tree is fully certified to ship directly to your door in 48 states.
• Shipping Restrictions: Due to strict state quarantine laws, we unfortunately cannot ship this tree to Texas or Florida.