When the mandarin and the sweet orange crossed, they also gave us clementines. Another cross between the mandarin and the pomelo is the sweet orange, known plainly as the orange. Both the mandarin and the pomelo are original citrus fruit. More exactly, tangerines are a cross between a mandarin and a pomelo. You might be interested to know : Are Mandarins Acidic or Alkaline? Tangerine: what is it?Ī tangerine is a mandarin orange hybrid. There are two major types of clementines: seedless clementines and clementines with seeds. The mandarin is an original citrus fruit, but the sweet orange is a cross between the mandarin and another original citrus fruit, the pomelo. Colloquially, clementines are also called clementine oranges because of their ancestry (having resulted from mandarins and sweet oranges). The scientific name for clementine fruit is Citrus clementina. Clementine: what is it?Ī clementine is a cross between the mandarin, also called mandarine or mandarine orange, and the sweet orange. To make matters worse, the same citrus fruit is often called differently in different parts of the world, or goes by different names within the same region. There are just so many different types of oranges and orange-like citrus fruit that sometimes not even botanists are clear on which is which unless they have genetic data on them. Generally, the more research you do on clementines and tangerines, and the more you eat them, the better you’ll get at telling them apart.īut it’s definitely not easy to tell the difference between all the different varieties of orange-like citrus fruit, whether it’s actual oranges, orange hybrids, or citrus fruit that look like oranges but are entirely different types of citrus fruit.

You can tell apart a clementine from a tangerine based on fruit size, fruit shape, more rarely rind color, peel thickness and adherence to the fruit, amount of pith, number, shape and size of segments, taste, degree of acidity and sweetness, juice amount, presence or lack of seeds, and season. How do you tell apart a clementine and a tangerine? Clementine or tangerine? How do you tell apart a clementine and a tangerine? Are clementines the same as tangerines? Is a clementine a tangerine? Is a tangerine a clementine? Are clementines and tangerines oranges? Read on to find out what is the difference between a clementine and a tangerine and what exactly are the two citrus fruit.

Clementine and mandarin difference