Why does grapefruit taste so bad

The riper the fruit, the sweeter the fruit is, and that perfect ripeness is based on when the fruit is picked. This is why Winter Sweetz Rio Red grapefruits are so delicious and juicy! Our fruits reach perfect ripeness between November on through March, making them the best sweet treat for the holidays. Grapefruit come in many different varieties, but they can be broadly separated by color: pink, white, and red. White grapefruits are yellow-skinned and large, but they tend to be more on the tart side.

Pink grapefruits are pink-skinned and very closely related to white grapefruit, so they also tend to be a bit bitter. The majority of these different kinds of grapefruit grow outside of the Lone Star State, where the Ruby Red grapefruit was made famous. Ruby Reds are yellow with a pronounced blush, but you can always tell a Ruby Red by the beautiful scarlet inside.

However, a point mutation cysteine to arginine at position in one distinct TAS2R TAS2R19 , in healthy adults of European ancestry, has been found to influence grapefruit bitterness.

Folks with homozygous cysteine rated grapefruit juice twice as bitter as those with Arginine. Ratings of grapefruit juice by a group of 96 healthy adults of European ancestry. That being said, it is important to note that bitterness in general is mediated by multiple TAS2Rs, each with variations within and across individuals. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

More questions:. This is a BETA experience. Alas, the neighbor cut down the tree and nobody in the current generation of the family liked grapefruit!

I don't recall the peel being as thick as a pomelo, and I thought it might be an Oro Blanco. But I tried an Oro Blanco from the farmers market and the flesh was very different--darker and much juicier, sweeter, fine-grained vesicles, with a disappointing lack of acid. Clearly a totally different fruit. Any ideas? We are hoping to plant a new one of whatever it was, preferably a dwarf or semi-dwarf version. Oh I love a good mystery! I started looking through one of my go-to resources to try and find it for you, but realized it might be best to share a couple links and have you sort through them as well.

The University of California, Riverside, has a huge collection of varieties with pictures and descriptions.

Start with the white grapefruit category and then move on the hybrids. Looking through it, I'm wondering if it's the New Zealand Grapefruit , as the description says it has a courser texture with a good acidity and bitterness. If you do end up planting something, I'd love for you to drop me another comment after you get your first fruit you know, in a few years. I also live in the Bay Area and have several fruit trees, but haven't tried planting a grapefruit tree yet.

This grapefruit is light pink, poor taste, little flavor, not sweet, pale colored juice. Very little juice to squeeze out - less than an ounce.

Then your mouth becomes DRY. I've liked grapefruit since I was a kid I'm This store USED to sell nice quality, red grapefruit with excellent flavor, great taste, sweet, red juice. More than an oz of juice after I squeezed that half onto a saucer! No more USDA eggs, etc. Poor quality foods across the board. I get so disappointed when fruit is missing their characteristic, old-time flavor. I've been on a mission to find good strawberries as I haven't been impressed since I was a kid with a giant strawberry patch in Wisconsin!

I finally found a grower who's breeding them for flavor and I got some plants, which should produce fruit this year. But about grapefruit - I take it you've tried the grapefruit during their peak season, and it still is bland?

Peak season is around January through March. I wonder if this is related to the diseases that have been taking out huge amounts of grapefruit trees over the past couple of years.

Perhaps some of their efforts to combat it are hurting the flavor - but that's just a guess. Otherwise, try to broil the grapefruit, which caramelizes the sugars a little and releases some juices.

CSAs if you aren't familiar with that term are usually local farm-grown products from smaller farms. Some of them import from other states to be able to offer more of a variety, like Grapefruit, which is only grown in a handful of warmer states.

Here's a website to search for CSA's near you but none of them grow grapefruit locally. Your email address will not be published. Why does orange or grapefruit juice taste so nasty after I brush my teeth? November 20, Notice the difference? We did. Share via Facebook.