About Juice Oranges

• Sweet oranges are generally divided by horticulturalists and consumers into two groups: "eating" oranges and juice oranges. Seedless navel oranges are most popular for eating, with bright color, thick, easily-peeled skins and strong flavors. Navel orange juice tends to become bitter soon after being squeezed. Juice oranges tend to be smaller in size, with thin skins and more variable flavor, but the sweetness of their juice remains stable even in storage. Commercial juice manufacturers harvest, store and blend several varieties of juice from oranges that bear fruit at different times of year. Several qualities make pineapple oranges a popular component of that blend. Pineapple oranges also make home-squeezed juice of high quality.

Pineapple Orange Assets

• Pineapple oranges combine the two most desirable qualities of juice oranges: deep orange color and intense flavor. Unlike less-flavorful Hamlin and Parson Brown juice oranges, pineapple orange juice stands on its own. Like Valencia, its flavor is full enough that it can be drunk without blending.

Pineapple Orange Vulnerabilities

• Pineapple remains a popular mid-season orange in Florida and grows well in Brazil. In fact, Brazilian pineapples are one of the components of Minute Maid orange juice. Still, pineapple orange is the least cold-hardy of the juice oranges, highly susceptible to freezing damage. Pineapple orange is also subject to alternate bearing, which makes yearly harvests unpredictable, and is vulnerable to citrus blight and fruit-drop when a crop is heavy or left on the tree for too long.

The Orange Calendar

• Before modern storage methods focused on producing a consistently-flavored orange juice year-round, home-squeezed juice reflected the fluctuations in taste, color and texture common to all produce. The major varieties of oranges used for juice, Valencia, Hamlin, Parson Brown, Rubi, Natal and Pera oranges, ripen on a variety of schedules through a fruiting season that runs from May through February. Early-season varieties, Hamlin and Parson Brown, tend to have light-colored flesh and sometimes watery juice. Robust pineapple oranges appear in the market in the middle of the fruiting season, usually in late fall and through the winter. A glass of fresh-squeezed pineapple orange juice will brighten the dullest of winter days.