The grapefruit tree in south London

I must've walked by it a thousand times or more. But it wasn't until I read a social media post at the weekend and looked for it on my way back from the post office this morning that I noticed the grapefruit tree on my street in London.

The story goes that it found its way to my neighbourhood from the Caribbean some 40 years ago. This grapefruit tree has fared well: the small seedling has now grown to the height of one of the red double-decker buses that have driven these same streets for more than 100 years.

Food has a particular way with memory. To cut open this piece of grapefruit took me back to Israel more than 30 years ago. The citrus industry was changing fast, and I travelled several times to Tel Aviv as a tyro reporter to write about the development of new market segments for Jaffa.

My grapefruit looks and tastes like an Oroblanco. It's a variety that Israel markets as Sweetie. At the time it found lots of buyers in Japan in particular. The story took me a couple of years later to the wholesale market in Kyoto to talk to the biggest importer of Sweetie, a Japanese called Toshikazu Shoji, who headed the purchasing department at Royal.

And then many years later it took me to Shanghai where I saw Sweetie at the wholesale market one morning in January. And we all know now that China is going to be a much bigger market than Japan.

Last October, I talked with David Alba on Fruitbox, my weekly conversation series at Fruitnet. David develops new varieties of citrus. These are helping the category to grow again. But to develop a new variety is expensive and can take many years. Even so, science means that new varieties get to market more quickly than ever before.

When the pandemic is over and we can travel again, I want to visit David in Spain to try these new varieties. It's just like I did in Israel 30 years ago, and just like this piece of grapefruit I found on my London street this morning.