You’ll see a sign with a painting of a finger lime
It started raining as soon as we arrived, but I could see blue sky not far away, so the rain stopped straight away, at just the right time. This farm is surrounded by mountains, so apparently, it’s prone to showers and the weather changes quickly. There had been quite a lot of rain there recently, so the red soil underfoot was a little muddy, and I changed into beach sandals. Being a weekday, my 3 friends and I were the only people there for the yuzu picking. Just to be sure, we brought a stepladder, but we had free use of the farm’s ladder because there weren’t any other customers around.
It was exciting seeing all the bright yellow yuzu fruit amid the greenery. But there was also the pain of being pricked, as we didn’t know that yuzu trees have sharp thorns.
There were also a number of small black spots on the yuzu skin. But those black dots were proof that absolutely no agricultural chemicals had been used on these yuzu fruit. Even though they don’t look all that nice and clean, as someone who uses the skin, I was glad there were no chemicals on them.
Straight away we started picking yuzu fruit, moving the big ladder from tree to tree. The ground was slightly sloping, so 2 of us held on to the ladder and the person who went up the ladder put the picked fruit in a basket, and so on we went in a sort of production line, harvesting the fruit. Because of the thorns, we had to be careful if we were picking in bare hands. It is frustrating when a yuzu you want to pick is on the other side of a bunch of thorns, so it would be handy to have something like thick rubber gloves. My 3 friends and I picked about 60 yuzu fruits.
The yuzu were $20 per kilogram. I bought 20 yuzu fruits that day, but they cost $33.
We also picked a few finger limes, which feature on the farm’s sign. Finger limes are about the size of your thumb and the flesh inside is like the pulpy flesh of a lime, but it has a characteristic texture that pops more. I particularly like finger lime on oysters. They said that finger limes from this farm are used in high-class restaurants. The finger lime trees had thorns too, so they were also difficult to pick.
It’s a bit difficult to see, but the slender green fruits are finger limes.
The farm grows other unusual fruits and plants like lemon myrtle trees, which are said to have a stronger lemon scent than lemon, aniseed, Buddha’s hand fruit (a citrus fruit variety in the shape of a yellow hand), Thai limes, cumquats, neem (renowned in India), and turmeric (also well-known in Japan). And not only does the farm grow and sell fresh fruits and plants, but it also sells natural cosmetics made from finger lime, yuzu, Buddha’s hand, and Thai lime. The shop recommendations are tooth powder and skin care products made from turmeric and neem. Turmeric is known for its anti-inflammatory properties and also for fading spots. Although I don’t think people in Japan are familiar with neem, it is supposed to be a kind of cure-all and has a lot of different properties, for example, inhibiting skin pigmentation, moisturizing skin, alleviating pimples and rashes with its natural anti-inflammatory effect, and repelling insects. There were also fruits and vegetables on sale at a little shop. They sell yuzu, so anyone who doesn’t want to pick yuzu themselves can buy yuzu for the same price. At the back of the shop were rows and rows of the recommended natural cosmetics.
After arriving back home I got down to business with the yuzu in the kitchen. To start with, I made lightly salted Chinese cabbage pickle and yuzu jam, and I finely chopped the skin and froze it. I didn’t look into the details about neem oil and natural skin care for this visit, so next time I’d like to try them out too.
Left: Shop at the farm entrance. The fruit was fresher and cheaper than at the supermarkets.
Right: Rows and rows of the recommended natural skin care products
