Never heard of it but sounds interesting.

One of the most delicious fruits anywhere, IMHO. Citrus Maxima as opposed to Citrus Paradisi, which is the grapefruit proper. Maxima lives up to its name in reaching sizes many times that of the real grapefruit. "Pamplemousse" evidently is the one word the French language has for both Maxima and Paradisi.

English distinguishes between the two, calling paradisi "grapefruit" and Maxima "PUM-mel-o" BUT most pummelos I've tasted across the world, in places where they are purported to reach ultimate excellence -- namely Southeast Asia, ESPECIALLY Thailand, where it is called "Somo"...simply disappoint after one has tried the Tahitian version , which are very thin skinned, pale green flesh that evokes the flavor of the lime except better besides being at the same time as being as sweet as a navel orange as if eating a kind of natural lime aide...only FAR better. Well, one must taste for oneself to understand.

All other Pummelos I've tried across the world are thick skinned, very hard to spoon eat as one does a grapefruit because the flesh is so dry, and possessing no flavor even remotely comparable to the Tahitian version. I just don't get it. I mean WHY is this marvelous thing so absent from citrus literature? Why can't it be grown ELSEWHERE in the tropics instead of those vastly inferior versions of such high reputation in Thailand? I really have no idea. And I've been all around the world in quest of the best fruits available.

Many people like the taste of the Tahitian pummelo, but the fruit has a strange taste to it that others do not appreciate, but isn't this true about a lot of food?

You make it sound so delicious Velozguy6!

Cory

I would love to try one. That sounds amazing.

same here, I'm sold :)

Joseph Banks, Captain Cook's naturalist, reported this fruit "growing wild" along river banks way back in the 1770's. HOW this could be I have no idea IF these giant citrus trees produced anything close to the quality of the ones I've already described. How could wild seedling "volunteers" clonally reproduce along those wild river banks? WHAT and WHEN FIRST DISCOVERED was THE ORIGINAL CLONAL Tahitian Pamplemousse, and by what means of assexual reproduction did the Polynesians propagate it? WHY is it found nowhere else naturally growing in Polynesia? NOT Tonga, not Samoa, not Cook Islands, etc. etc.? A real mystery to me.

velozguy6 what is reference for that can you find The J banks reference online?

Since I spend plenty years in the Far East, that pomelo on the island of Java is called Djeruk Bali, I eat my share of them, they are very,very big. About the size of a small pumpkin. There is no way that you can eat the whole thing. You see them everywhere over there. I have been trying to get sionwood, nothing!

I wonder if this variety is a cultivar of the original Tahitian Pummelo that you describe above. This variety is sold in the states and the fruit are not as large or as thin skinned. I have 2 of this variety from OGW, they are on dwarfing rootstock.

https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/tahitian.html

The Tahitian "pomplemousse" I first discovered while at the Club Med on Moorea, that lovely island so very close to Tahiti, when I was 22 years old I believe. It was cut in half and set upon everyone's place, along with French bread and coffee at breakfast, and this immediately stunned me by its huge size. Most tourists were clueless and disinterested and took for granted this miraculous thing. I didn't. But I couldn't discover much no matter whom I talked to.

When I was 29 I took a Windjammer barefoot cruise around the world for ten months and looked for fruit markets everywhere I went, finding many wonderful discoveries, the guanabana and the Durian were two of my favorites, but NO Tahitian pummelo rivals anywhere EXCEPT, of all places, on the very , very remote island in Melanesia called Espiritu Santo in what were then called the New Hebrides, an island group partially run, AGAIN, by the French, so what did this tell me? I sort of came up with the theory that French explorer Captain Aintoine de Bouganville, who explored the South Pacific years BEFORE Captain Cook had SOMETHING to do with this, I still, however, do not know WHAT!!!!

Yes! Absolutely delicious! I too, was in Moorea for a month in 1978. When I returned to the states I asked every supermarket I could find and no one ever heard of pomplemousse. I haven’t had the pleasure of eating one since!

Old thread! But found this:

https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/products/tahitian-pomelo-pummelo-semi-dwarf-tree?variant=32351398363195

Update. I have for four years been been growing in Lake Balboa, California, two of these plants that I got from a very helpful and generous professor from the University. One just produced its first fruits, and they seem to be the real deal in shape, thin skin and lime flavor, but as they are very young plants the fruits have been of smaller size and with a taste more sour, but since I am in zone 10, I think a little patience might result in proper Tahitian pummelos next winter or the winter after.