Types of oranges, and what each one is best for

The types of oranges most people meet fall into four groups. Navel oranges (Washington, Cara Cara, Lane Late) are seedless eating oranges. Common oranges, led by the Valencia, are the juice oranges. Blood oranges (Moro, Tarocco, Sanguinelli) have red flesh. Sour oranges, chiefly the Seville, are too bitter to eat fresh and are the traditional marmalade orange.

Each group holds many varieties. A 2007 study in California Agriculture found that the navel bin at a grocery store may hold as many as 22 commercial varieties over the course of a year, all sold simply as "navel oranges". The Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection at UC Riverside splits sweet oranges more finely still: early and midseason navels, late navels, Valencias, blood oranges, acidless oranges and "other" sweet oranges.

The seasons in this guide are the collection's ripening windows at Riverside, in the same inland valley country as Redlands. Other regions shift the calendar. In Arizona's low desert, for example, Cooperative Extension reports Lane Late navels ready to pick from January, a month ahead of Riverside.

The main types of oranges, side by side

The Riverside columns come from the UC Riverside variety pages linked below. Florida seasons and seed counts per fruit are from UF/IFAS Extension.

Navel oranges, the seedless eating oranges

A navel orange is a sweet orange with a small second fruit tucked into its blossom end, which is the "navel". Most California navels trace back to one variety, the Washington navel.

The Washington navel came from Bahia in Brazil and reached the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1870. Trees sent to Eliza Tibbets in Riverside did well, and within a decade it was the most widely planted variety in the area. Its flowers carry no viable pollen and its ovules aren't viable either, which is why the fruit has no seeds. It ripens November to January at Riverside, then hangs on the tree for several months and stores well. The same UC page notes, in a line from 1967, that it "processes poorly". That matters for juice, as the next section explains.

Most navels since have been bud sports of the Washington: a branch that mutates and is propagated on its own. Because navels set no seed, the California Agriculture study notes, bud sports are the only practical way to get new ones. Thomson and Newhall both started that way, and so did the Cara Cara.

Cara Cara, the pink navel

The Cara Cara is a mutation found on a Washington navel tree in 1976, at Hacienda Cara Cara in Venezuela. It came to California by way of Florida. The flesh is deep pink, close to the darkest red grapefruit, and the color is lycopene rather than the anthocyanin in blood oranges. The peel looks like any other navel's.

It also tastes softer, with low acid: UC Riverside's November and December samples of Cara Cara measured 0.7–1.0%.

Lane Late and the summer navels

Lane Late was found in Australia in 1950 and named for the tree's owner. It reached California in 1973. It ripens four to six weeks after the Washington and hangs well into spring, so its Riverside season runs February to June. The fruit has a smoother peel and a smaller navel.

Other Australian late navels followed. They include Powell and Chislett. The California Agriculture study found that late navels, which are more highly colored and easier to peel than Valencias, have cut into California's Valencia acreage.

Why does navel orange juice turn bitter?

Navel orange juice turns bitter because of limonin. The fruit holds a tasteless precursor of limonin in the white albedo and the segment membranes. Once the fruit is squeezed, that precursor meets the acidic juice and slowly converts into limonin, which is intensely bitter. A freshly cut navel tastes sweet. Leave a jug of navel juice in the fridge overnight and it often turns bitter.

A 2018 study of Newhall navel juice found that heat and added acid sped the change up, that filtered juice ended up with much less limonin than unfiltered juice, and that fruit stored for a while after harvest made less bitter juice than fruit juiced straight off the tree. Arizona Cooperative Extension's advice: navels can be juiced, but the juice can't be stored.

So squeeze navels by the glass, strain out the pulp, and drink the juice soon after. For a pitcher, use Valencias, the orange Arizona Extension singles out for its juice.

Common oranges, the juice oranges

Common oranges are sweet oranges without a navel, and most carry at least a few seeds. The Valencia is the one that matters in California.

Its history is tangled. According to the UC Riverside Valencia page, an English nurseryman, Thomas Rivers, brought the variety from the Azores and listed it in 1865. In 1876 he sent trees to A. B. Chapman of San Gabriel, California. Chapman renamed it Valencia Late after a Spanish visitor said it resembled a late orange from the region of Valencia. Florida growers knew the same tree as Hart's Tardiff.

California's Valencias today are mostly nucellar selections, near-copies of the variety raised from seed. Frost came out of Riverside in 1915 and was released in 1952. Olinda was found in a dooryard in Olinda, California, in 1939. Campbell came from an orchard near Santa Ana planted in 1871. For fewer seeds, look for Midknight or Delta, two seedless South African selections. Delta can be picked 2 to 3 weeks before most other Valencias.

In UC Riverside's 2007 samples, Olinda Valencias ran about 52–56% juice by weight, and Arizona Extension describes Valencia juice as deep orange in color and high in sugar.

Valencias also change on the tree. Riverside samples of Valencia Late measured 1.5% acid and a sugar-to-acid ratio of about 7–8 in late March. By mid-July the acid was down to 1.0–1.1% and the ratio was near 12. Our Valencia Orange Marmalade is made from summer-harvested California Valencias, when that acid has softened.

Hamlin and Pineapple, for Florida context

Florida grows its own sweet oranges. Hamlin is a major Florida variety with sweet, low-acid flesh. It is possibly the world's leading very early sweet orange. UC Riverside lists it as not commercially available in California. Pineapple is Florida's classic midseason orange, renamed in the 1880s for its fragrance, excellent for processing, and seedy at 15–25 seeds a fruit.

Why do Valencia oranges turn green again?

Valencias turn green again because a ripe orange left on the tree in warm weather can make chlorophyll again. The process is called regreening. The peel's color bodies, which hold the orange pigments, revert to green chloroplasts. A 1989 USDA study calls regreening of mature Valencias a problem in Southern California and Florida. In its field trial at Riverside, untreated fruit left on the tree for two months from the end of May had at least three-quarters of its peel turn deep green.

Ben Faber of UC Cooperative Extension explains it this way: cold brings color to citrus, so Southern California's warm winters leave more green fruit than the Central Valley does, and over-mature fruit hanging on the tree can lose its color. UC Riverside also records that Campbell Valencias regreen more than other selections in the interior districts.

A green shoulder on a June or July Valencia is a sign of age, not of sourness. It is also why summer Valencias rarely look as good as winter navels. Regreening is a separate thing from citrus greening (HLB), the bacterial disease, which also leaves green patches on misshapen fruit.

Blood oranges and the chill they need

Blood oranges are sweet oranges with red flesh, and often a red blush on the rind, from anthocyanin, the pigment that also colors pomegranates. The color depends on weather, and UC Riverside's notes point inland. Its Tarocco page says it needs a chilly winter to develop, and the Moro page notes that Moro colors and tastes best in the warm inland valleys and gets no red rind at all on the Southern California coast. In the Arizona low desert, Extension reports, many blood oranges fail to develop deep red flesh.

The three you'll see most:

• Moro is the most deeply colored blood orange and the earliest to ripen, usually by January at Riverside. It is of Sicilian origin. It holds on the tree but develops an off-flavor if left too long.
• Tarocco reached Florida from the Mediterranean around 1880 and California soon after. UC Riverside calls Tarocco #7 one of the most delicious blood oranges in its collection, though its rind gets little or no red.
• Sanguinelli is a Spanish variety that arose as a limb sport of Doblefina about 1950. Its red rind is rarely equaled by other blood oranges, and a February tasting note in the UC records still found it tart.

Use Moro for juice and color, and Tarocco for eating.

Sour oranges, Seville and bergamot

Sour oranges belong to a separate species, Citrus aurantium. Commercially the fruit is valued for its oil and juice rather than for eating. "Seville orange" is simply another name for sour orange, according to the UC Riverside Seville page. The fruit ripens January to March, is seedy, bitter and acidic, and is the orange traditionally used for marmalade. Its flowers are also a source of neroli oil for perfume, and the tree is a common rootstock.

Bergamot is a close relative, thought to be a hybrid of sour orange with citron or lemon. The fruit is yellow and very sour. Its rind oil flavors Earl Grey tea and goes into perfume, and Italy produces most of the world's supply.

Neither belongs in a fruit bowl. Both are worth finding for marmalade and zest in late winter.

Which orange is best for juice, eating, marmalade or zest?

For juice, choose Valencias. They give more juice than navels, they are in season from March through summer, and Arizona Extension calls their juice high quality. Navel juice is fine by the glass but turns bitter on standing.

For eating out of hand, choose navels: Washington or Cara Cara in winter; in spring, Lane Late or another late navel. They are seedless, and navels peel more easily than Valencias.

For marmalade, Seville is the British classic because it is bitter and seedy. Our marmalades use sweet California oranges instead, which make a gentler, fruitier jar: a Navel Orange Marmalade and a Valencia version. At the 2026 World Marmalade Awards the Navel took a Silver and the Valencia two Merit awards, part of OCB's 8 honors that year.

For zest, use a navel. UC Riverside describes the Washington navel's rind as especially well colored, deep orange. For a perfumed zest, a bergamot is hard to beat.

Mandarins, tangelos and tangors are cousins

Mandarins, tangelos and tangors are close relatives of the orange, but they belong to other groups. Mandarins, which include tangerines and Satsumas, get a guide of their own. Tangelos are grapefruit-mandarin hybrids such as the Minneola, which has a spot in our roundup of California specialty citrus. Tangors are mandarin-orange crosses. The Kiyomi, for example, is a Satsuma crossed with the Trovita orange, and the Dweet is a sweet orange crossed with a Dancy tangerine.

The full range of fruit OCB turns into marmalade, from Minneola tangelo to Duncan grapefruit, is in the California citrus collection.

Photo by Sahand Babali on Unsplash.