The is a citrus

Citrus

Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...

 fruit grown on Sakurajima

Sakurajima

, also romanized as Sakurashima or Sakura-jima, is an active composite volcano and a former island of the same name in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyūshū, Japan...

, an active composite volcano in Kagoshima prefecture

Kagoshima Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kagoshima.- Geography :Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu and includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest for a few hundred kilometers...

, Japan. It is almost the same as Kishumikan. The same species is also grown in Fukuyama in Kirishima along Kagoshima Bay

Kagoshima Bay

is a deep inlet on the coast of Japan.Kagoshima Bay is on the south coast of the island of Kyūshū. The port city of Kagoshima and its well-protected harbor lie on the bays western coast....

, and this is simply called komikan.

Summary

It is a Kagoshima local product and it is the world's smallest satsuma as certified by Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...

. Because the soil is rich in volcanic ash

Volcanic ash

Volcanic ash consists of small tephra, which are bits of pulverized rock and glass created by volcanic eruptions, less than in diameter. There are three mechanisms of volcanic ash formation: gas release under decompression causing magmatic eruptions; thermal contraction from chilling on contact...

, Sakurajima is not suitable for rice cultivation, so the komikan is an important commercial crop. Some of the huge trees have been standing for over 200 years and sometimes a few hundred kilograms of mikan are produced from a single tree. The fruits ripen at the beginning of December and it turns into a flattened spherical shape that weighs anything from 20 to 50 grams. Its pith is hard but sweet-tasting.

History

There are three theories about how Sakurajima Komikan were first cultivated. The first is that Shimazu Yoshihiro

Shimazu Yoshihiro

was the second son of Shimazu Takahisa and younger brother of Shimazu Yoshihisa. It had traditionally been believed that he became the seventeenth head of the Shimazu clan after Yoshihisa, but it is currently believed that he let Yoshihisa keep his position....

, the second son of Shimazu Takahisa

Shimazu Takahisa

, the son of Shimazu Tadayoshi, was a daimyo during Japan's Sengoku period. He was the fifteenth head of the Shimazu clan.On 1526, Takahisa was adopted as the successor to Shimazu Katsuhisa and became head of the clan. He launched a series of campaigns to reclaim three provinces: Satsuma, Osumi,...

, who was the Daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

 of the Satsuma Province, took back the oranges to Satsuma from the Korean Peninsula

Korean Peninsula

The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula in East Asia. It extends southwards for about 684 miles from continental Asia into the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by the Sea of Japan to the south, and the Yellow Sea to the west, the Korea Strait connecting the first two bodies of water.Until the end of...

 after the two Japanese invasions of Korea　(1592 and 1598). Otherwise, from Kii Province

Kii Province

, or , was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is today Wakayama Prefecture, as well as the southern part of Mie Prefecture. Kii bordered Ise, Izumi, Kawachi, Shima, and Yamato Provinces. The Kii Peninsula takes its name from this province....

 after the Battle of Sekigahara

Battle of Sekigahara

The , popularly known as the , was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 which cleared the path to the Shogunate for Tokugawa Ieyasu...

 (on October 21, 1600). The third theory is that he brought back Takada mikan oranges from Yatsushiro in Higo Province

Higo Province

Higo Province was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. It was sometimes called , with Hizen Province. Higo bordered on Chikugo, Bungo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Provinces....

 (present day Kumamoto). This opinion is the most popular. It has become a speciality of Satsuma because Naotomo Yamaguchi, Tokugawa Ieyasu's retainer, admired its great taste.　In 1603, it was presented to Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu

 was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara  in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...

 by Shimazu Tadatsune

Shimazu Tadatsune

was a tozama daimyo of Satsuma, the first to hold it as a formal fief under the Tokugawa shogunate, and the first Japanese to rule over the Ryūkyū Kingdom...

 , tozama daimyo of Satsuma.　In ancient times, it was referred to as Mukoujima Mikan or Aka Mikan but it started to be called Sakurajima Mikan in around 1658.