Can you still get Honeybell Tangelos in Florida?
I’ve occasionally seen them in stores here in Greater Miami. I don’t recall every trying one.
As a personal rule of thumb, IMO any fruit with the word “honey” in its name has been bred to be stupid sweet at the total expense of any and all other fruitly virtues like flavor, consistency, or nutrition. I’ll pass.
Eh, honeycrisp apples are nice and crisp. But you’re right that they don’t have much flavor.
Try one. You’ll thank me. As I recall they are only available for a short time in January.
No finer citrus fruit.
I didn’t realize navel oranges are in season during the winter. (I always thought winter fruits were shipped from Mexico.)
But, thats what Google confirms.
I should have included winter in the poll.
Just vote year around for winter.
Valencia oranges dominate the summer months from March to September.
Link When Are Oranges In Season? Buying Guide For Fresh Oranges | 23 July, 2026
And i had no idea there were oranges that are fresh in the summer. I assumed summer oranges were all stored. Even so, there is an abundance of fresh fruits in the summer, many locally grown. I’m happy to continue thinking of oranges as a winter treat.
(It’s not just navel oranges that are harvested in the winter. So are Florida juice oranges, and popular mandarin oranges, and many others.)
I get navel oranges less than I used to. It seems like my preferred sort (thick-peeled, not dripping with juice, segments separating easily) is less common than it was, or the oranges are more variable.
I was never bothered by white rind bits adhering to the fruit. Sometimes I’d gnaw off part of the thick white inner layer of rind as an added treat.
Other kinds of oranges I can take or leave, mostly leave.
In other news, rhubarb season is underway. Pie is coming!
When come back, bring.
I have also noticed modern oranges have less seeds.
I ate an orange yesterday with only one seed.
I remember in childhood we made a game out of spitting out the seeds into a wastebasket. Distance and accuracy matttered. 
rhubarb pie. 
I don’t buy oranges because their faults, which you described, are often prevalent. I buy tangerines instead; “Cuties” are my favorite. I recommend doing that as an alternative.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll have to stop in next time I’m passing through. Can I just stop in at their location on Redbank Rd? Because from the map it looks like a big building and a big operation. Maybe they have fruit stands nearby.
I grew up in Upstate New York and my dad taught at RPI Troy, so his work breaks coincided with our school breaks and we were frequent snow birds who took road trips down to Florida in the winters. With 5 kids in the family, we’d buy huge bags of Florida navel oranges and we’d scarf down several navel oranges a day. They were great!
But I haven’t bought them recently. Sounds like I’m overdue!
In my youth of the ‘60s and ‘70s those Florida navel oranges were great to eat. Truly fantastic! I’ll be trying some California navels soon because of this thread.
Fwiw, for Florida Orange industry is in trouble due to orange greening, a bacterial disease that kills trees, and reduces the quality of the fruit they produce.
Growers are now treating their trees with antibiotics and building expensive screen houses to protect them. (The vacations are carried by a small insect.) The state harvest has dropped 92.5% over the past two decades, and the number of acres in commercial production has dropped from 665,529 in 2000 to 208,183 acres at the end of 2025. (the pathogen was first found in Florida in 2005.)
https://www.foodandwine.com/what-is-citrus-greening-11787616
The oranges being produced aren’t as sweet, to the point that the USDA changed the legal definition of “orange juice” this year, so the industry can meet it.
The article says “we won’t have to import high-sugar oranges”, but those standards were set to match domestic orange juice back in 1963, when it was set.
So, i suppose people in other states don’t usually eat Florida oranges out of hand, but on average, they are objectively less sweet than a couple of decades ago.
There’s a small shop next to the large warehouse/processing buildings. The selection could be limited, it depends on the season and what has been recently harvested.
Oranges? In summer?
Oranges are a winter fruit here, from November to about March. I buy Jaffa/Shamouti oranges, which are big, seedless, easy to peel and have little juice, which means little mess.
We have two Navel orange trees, so we’re fully provisioned with oranges for as much as ⅔ of the year. Depending on seasonal variances, we can normally start picking mid-November, and by May they’re getting dry and pithy on the tree. We usually pick the trees as clean as possible (sometimes we can’t reach them all) in early spring, and juice a lot of them. The rest get stashed in the fridge to get eaten over the next few months. I think we still have about a dozen in the fridge, but they may end up in the compost.
The tree in the backyard yields better fruit than the one in the front, probably because it gets more consistent water.
OK, I just had the first one from the batch I bought a couple of days ago. Alas, sour, hard to peel, and a little dry.
That’s disappointing. I’ve had good luck so far. I suspect hard to peel oranges will be in my future soon.
I’ll enjoy the good ones while they last
Hard to peel oranges are so annoying. Easy to peel navels are great.
I do find them annoying, but even more so, unappealing.