Naranja blanca comun
This variety is very similar to the Imperial or Castellana and precedes the Salustiana and the Valenciana varieties. The taste is more similar to the Salustiana and is sweeter and less sour than the Navel group of oranges. It also differs from these for the lack of the typical “navel” – or second fruit. The colour is less intense than other varieties, but if the fruit is left to ripen on the tree, it takes on a rather attractive orange shade. It has a low content of limonoic acid, which is particularly interesting for the production of juices. Limonoic acid is the non bitter forerunner of limonine, the substance which is mainly responsible for the bitter taste of oranges and juices when they get in contact with air. If the juice of these oranges is drunk straight after pressing, the bitter taste can only be slightly perceived, but after a while the limonoic acid inhibits limonine, which causes bitterness. Fruits are picked from the end of February until April. The Blanca Comun or Comuna variety is one of the five mutations of the original Sinensis variety: Navel, Blanca Selecta, Blanca Comun, Sanguina and Tardiva. Each variety has in turn given rise to many other varieties until 1975, when more than 125 varieties were counted just in the Carcagente area. This variety has been historically grown in the Comunidad Valenciana, especially in Alzira and Carcagente; centenarian trees have been found in the Alzira municipality, in a plot cultivated by the La Vall de la Casella, Coop.V cooperative. The “Blanca comuna” orange is a variety for which five or six 130 year-old trees remain and are located in a farm between the municipalities of Alcira and Carcagente, where cultivation was introduced by the Comunidad Valenciana (Region of Valencia) centuries ago. These varieties stopped being commercialized because they had a lower yield than the new varieties of navel orange.
Back to the archive >
