Hey, we agree! We love them too.

I keep meaning to try some. Maybe I will get some next time I get down to the store!!

Last year's were super juicy and delicious but I bought some last week and most of them were dry. Am going to buy another bag this week and hope for the best. :)

Ones I bought today are juicy and sweet. On sale for $l.98 for a 2 lb bag.

Glenda, that is a steal. We pay at least 3.98 and often more. My boys love them. I don't have them this week but I had 2 oranges, and a apple left..lol so I made orange jello with shredded carrots and the two oranges. Now I'm out of fruit and fresh veggies which means I can't put off grocery shopping any longer.

My first choice is satsuma mandarins (typically sold with some leaf attachment). Big segments, very juicy, very sweet and super easy to peel. But they have a limited window of availability (just now starting to go out of season) and are never cheap!!

Cuties, which are often clementines, are a very distant second for me. Much smaller segments, not nearly as sweet and as noted, often dry.

Much higher at Wal Mart! Last week, at least. Mine, today, are firm,, easy to peel. Love them cause they are seedless.

I believe the Cuties brand sells two and maybe more varieties of what used to be called just "tangerines". The production seasons don't exactly coincide.

Cuties sells mandarins, of which there are multiple different kinds - clementines, Murcotts (the two varieties sold under the Cuties label), tangerines, tangelos and Satsumas. Each is rather distinct in size, shape and flavor and have different seasons of availability. Murcotts are also known as honey tangerines and are actually a mandarin-sweet orange cross. Sumo tangerines are mandarin-naval orange cross.

Since I love the satsuma mandarins so much I've tried them all but there is really a very different taste (sweetness, flavor and juiciness) between them and I prefer to stick with the satsumas.

Have some in our fridge right now. DH LOVES them.

I grew up with 2 huge Louisiana Satsuma trees in the yard so they are by far my favorite. I don't have them very often now unless I happen to go visit family during season. It's hit or miss with the cuties and I hate getting a sack full of dry ones.

I got some mandarins at a really good price at Aldi last week ($2 for 3#) but as is sometimes the case with their cheap produce, they will have to be eaten very quickly.

My next door neighbor in Encinitas CA had the most luscious fruit on his clementine tree -- I've no idea what they would have been (he didn't remember either) but they truly were like honey, seedless, & juicy. Maybe they were satsumas or murcotts. I've never gotten anything in store like them. He would give me those, and I would give him avocados, plums, or a cherimoya.

Some are good if you find them when they aren't rotten already.

Buying dry clementines ...

... doesn't help produce dry humour?

Who'd'a thunk?!

o j

This year I have purchased under the Cuties label 3 sizes. That of a large walnut size which had the best flavor but were hard to peel. One that was the size of a tennis ball and one that was between the two. My store sells the sizes all at the same time but luckily at different prices and container sizes.

Love them...... I paid $4.69 for a two pound bag, which is a bit high, but well worth it.

Gardengal...what is the difference between Cuties and Halos?

Brand name :-) Cuties are owned by Sun Pacific; Halos by Wonderful Citrus (formerly Paramount Citrus). Same kind of fruit, just sold under different brand names.

I don’t usually buy a big bag because DH starts out eating them along with me and then they will sit uneaten except by me. So yeaterday I bought a few navel oranges because I wanted those, and the tangelos offered as a sample weren’t that sweet. Well, neither were these oranges. So am glad I didn’t purchase more.

"My next door neighbor in Encinitas CA had the most luscious fruit on his clementine tree -- I've no idea what they would have been (he didn't remember either) but they truly were like honey, seedless, & juicy. Maybe they were satsumas or murcotts."

If it was a clementine tree, then it produced clementines :-) Which are a specific type of mandarin orange. Unless you just mean a mandarin orange tree.....then it could be any one of several types, including clementines.

Kinda like the difference between an apple tree and a Golden Delicious apple tree - one is very generalized and refers to a bunch of different kinds and the other is very type specific.

We bought a bag yesterday. Hubby loves them. Since he's not a big fruit eater, keeping Cuties around is a way to get some fruit in him.

Well, bought a bag yesterday and so far they are good. They are about half the size they normally are, though. I just gave my daughter some of them because it's just me here.

I wish I liked oranges. I don't like the texture of the pith, or whatever it's called that forms the segments, but I do love the flavor and the juice. I eat grapefruit and pomellos but peel all that off and just eat the juicy little morsels. It makes a giant mess but it's so good!

I'm with you, Chi. The other thing I don't like about oranges is that they make my hands sticky.

Thanks Gardengal, I actually have no idea, it could have been any of those. Going on 30 years ago; the neighbor is long gone, so are all my trees - cut down by my buyer to build a McMansion :( - and perhaps his as well.

We have a tree in the backyard that grew from me throwing out old ones for the deer. Noticed it a few years ago. We got about four dozen from it this year.

Train gang group today, and served them. Great! None left.

I only started buying these a few years ago and they were very delicious. Then the next year I bought some when they came back in season and they were not very good. They have not been very good since that first year that I started buying them. The taste just isn't the same, they are hard to peel and some will be all dried out. I have bought the name brand and also no name brand, have not found either to be any better. When I first began to buy them, the peel came off of them very easily, now they peel more like an orange. I want mine to be zipper peels! They are also very small, like not much bigger than a golf ball. They used to be just a bit smaller than a tennis ball. I've just about given up on them.

We prefer Adorbs, a Kroger brand. A 3lb bag doesn't last more than two days so we never lose any.

A large percentage of this type of citrus is grown in California, mostly the San Joaquin valley and some coastal areas too.

Each year is variable just as any other produce product. I agree, smaller ones are harder to peel and they're cheaper as a result of that and size. Larger ones, and the branded ones featuring varieties that are expressly easy to peel, are not usually a problem to deal with.

Like them regardless of size. Terilyn, a tree that produces from a seed. Lucky you !!!