Bitter, wild, vital, and endangered, Citrus Indica (Memang Narang) is the world’s first orange. Protecting this ancient fruit—and others like it—is crucial for preserving the diversity that ensures the future of global citrus.
In collaboration with BBC food journalist Dan Saladino, we created a Delight to showcase California’s rare and wild citrus and replicate the flavor of the sacred “Fruit of the Ghosts.”
5mg THC
Infused with sun-grown local indica flower with 5 MG of THC, this Delight showcases rare California citrus—an effort to support local biodiversity so that we never have to live in a world without it.
To save food diversity, we need to eat it, which is why these Delights are made with rare varieties of citrus chosen to emulate the flavor of the first orange: Citrus Indica, the fruit of the ghosts.
BBC food journalist Dan Saladino has spent over a decade traveling the globe researching foods at risk of extinction, sharing the events and circumstances that led to their uncertain futures. In his book Eating to Extinction, Dan explores the thorny history of global agriculture, focusing each chapter on a single crop and explaining the social and environmental factors that have shaped its evolution.
Dan Saladino, author of “Eating to Extinction”
Memang Nerang traces the history of citrus over eight million years, beginning with a rare orange cultivar still found in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya, India. Also known as Citrus Indica or "The Fruit of Ghosts," Memang Nerang is a small, thin-skinned fruit packed with large seeds and scant, sour juice. This sacred orange plays an important role in Garo burial traditions, often placed beside the dead for its phytochemicals, which act as an insect deterrent. These same phytochemicals serve as the fruit’s natural defense, fortifying it against disease while imparting a bitter flavor. As a result, large-scale producers have favored juicier, sweeter orange varieties over Citrus Indica, unwittingly privileging market viability over protective diversity.
Filled with large seeds and bitter flesh, Citrus Indica is sacred to the Garo, but commercially undesirable.
Though commercially unfavorable, Citrus Indica possesses a gene that can be bred into monocultures of Navel and Valencia oranges, potentially making them immune to citrus greening disease—a devastating pathogen threatening citrus cultivation worldwide. Bitter, wild, resilient, and now endangered, protecting Citrus Indica is crucial to preserving the genetic diversity that ensures the future of global citrus.
Commercial citrus has steadily evolved to appeal to consumer preference for sweet, juicy fruit.
Moved by the urgency of Eating to Extinction, we couldn’t help but draw parallels between commercial citrus cultivation and the recent industrialization of cannabis. Like citrus, large-scale cannabis farmers have turned to cloning rather than growing from seed to ensure more controlled outcomes. This method disrupts the natural cycles of both the plant and its surroundings, prioritizing commercially desirable traits over genetic diversity.
At Rose Farm, we continue to employ traditional farming methods, growing cannabis from seed to work in harmony with nature—learning from it rather than attempting to control it. This shared perspective drew us to Eating to Extinction and Dan Saladino, inspiring us to align our work with his mission and spread awareness about the importance of biodiversity in the food we cultivate, cook with, and consume.
In January, Dan traveled on behalf of Rose to India’s Garo Hills to get closer to Citrus Indica and learn more about the region’s Indigenous people and their relationship to the fruit. Dan's contacts received permission to film from the local authorities, on the condition that we would make the footage available to schools in nearby communities as so little is known about the Garo people and region.
While Dan was filming in the Garo Hills, we met with Tracy Khan, curator of the Citrus Collection at UC Riverside, home to the world’s largest citrus collection—around 2,500 trees representing more than 1,050 unique cultivars. UC Riverside houses two or three trees that were suspected, but not yet confirmed, to be Citrus indica. Tracy allowed us to leave with three pieces of the fruit, rinsed and without foliage, complete with a permission slip signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.
UC Riverside’s citrus collection includes the Valentine, a hybrid of pummelo, mandarin and blood orange, with heart-shaped segments.
It wasn’t until we met with Dan in London and reviewed the footage from the Garo Hills that we realized the fruit we had been permitted to take from the UC Riverside collection and the wild fruit from the deep forests of Northern India were identical, both in appearance and flavor. We sent the precious Citrus Indica to National Geographic photographer Anand Varma to be documented, along with a wide variety of wild and uncommon citrus sourced by rare fruit distributor Joyce Zhang, hand-selected from small citrus farms across California.
While Anand was shooting, Dan introduced us to Franco Fubini, an advocate for specialization in farming and author of In Search of the Perfect Peach. The first oranges arrived in Sicily in the 9th century via traders who shipped citrus from India and China into southern Europe, so we traveled together to the small island in the Mediterranean to learn more about the fruit that has evolved in the landscapes surrounding Mount Etna. The active volcano stands more than 11,000 feet tall and was covered in snow when we arrived in Sicily, while the bright citrus at its base soaked in the late-winter sunshine.
Citrus Indica drew inspiration from by the psychedelically bright oranges we enjoyed with Dan Saladino, warmed by the Sicilian sun.
Here, we ate varieties of psychedelically vivid oranges directly off the tree, while Franco explained, “You taste the sun.” Carmelo D’Imprima, the owner of Donna Finna, a beautiful farm specializing in blood oranges and Moro, taught us that you need not be afraid of the skins—and bit into the oranges whole, like an apple.
Italian Sanguinello oranges owe their crimson flesh to high levels of anthocyanin; the same pigment that makes pomegranates bright red.
Back in San Francisco, Rose Chef Joey Rachel worked with Joyce Zhang to procure a diverse variety of citrus to emulate the flavor of Citrus Indica, crafting a recipe to help us share the story of the world’s most sacred orange with our community. The result is a Delight designed to showcase rare California citrus—an effort to support local biodiversity in hopes that we never have to live in a world without it.
5mg THC
Infused with sun-grown local indica flower with 5 MG of THC, this Delight showcases rare California citrus—an effort to support local biodiversity so that we never have to live in a world without it.