红美人 (Hong Mei Ren) - The Red Beauty Oranges

Lunar New Year takes place in about a month's time and we have already started seeing boxes after boxes of mandarin oranges stacked up at supermarkets! Apart from the usual species (like lu gan, jiao gan, peng gan etc), a special one appeared to have been marketed earlier. 

红美人 (Hong Mei Ren) - directly translated as the red beauty, I had noticed this special species, said to be a "hybrid between tangerine and orange" last lunar year and a friend passed me one to sample. Thing was: it's expensive and if memory didn't fail me, one fruit cost between S$2 and S$3!

 Lucky me, NTUC Fairprice has a promotion these two days; a box of 10s with an original price tag of S$19.95 now cost S$8.90, a hefty 55% discount! With no shopping bag, both Alex and I can manage, sadly, only two cartons.

Unravelling the red beauties within. Individually covered with two layers of protection, I can't wait to rekindle the taste I first experienced almost a year ago! 

Do handle with care as the beauties are delicate.

One key advantage of the red beauties was the ease of peeling off the skin! To be fair, that's quite easy for most mandarin oranges but can be a feat for normal oranges. In addition, the skin for the red beauties was so thin! 

Another noticeable feature of the red beauties was the reduction of the white spongey fibrous substance that connects the orange segments. Known as piths, I don't mind them but a friend of mine detests them for reasons unbeknownst to us. 

Look how "clean" it was! 

As mentioned earlier, please handle with care. The red beauties were literally bursting with juices and it's quite easy to damage the edible parts. Not that it matters that much to me as it would eventually end up in my tummy. 

See how juicy it was! The taste was definitely on point; with losing the sourness from typical oranges, there was a sweetness similar to the lu gan species of the mandarin oranges. My friend who introduced me to red beauties told me this brand isn't as sweet but honestly, I am still happy consider one fruit was less than a dollar! 

Get yours soon as promotion ends today!

While stock lasts!