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flavor What do Aji Limon taste like?

windchicken .... your plants have the shape like mine ... I'm thinking .. needs lots of tying up. But your pods look much larger. Could be because your plants are larger. Hard to tell from a picture. The pods from mine range from tiny 3/8"- 1/2" long ones to the biggest at about 1" to 1 1/4" long. My big ones are about the size of most Thai peppers from the Thai markets. Mine also gave a great harvest. 2 plants gave me all I needed. I found one other picture of a plant. Not a great photo. I guess I didn't take many photos of them because the pods didn't look as sexy as other plants I grew. Even if they aren't scary or sexy looking .... they are great tasting ..

GA Growhead ... as of yet all I've grown is mainly chinese and some annuums . I'll have to give some other types a try sometime.

Peace,
P.Dreadie

Limon.jpg


windchicken ... do you think those seeds from Casa Depot are the same as what you're growing now ? Or another type adding to the confusion ?
 
cycadjungle said:
I just planted my seeds for this pepper today. So which pepper has a better, or stronger citrus taste? These or Fataliis?
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I don't think you can really compare the two...One is a chinense and the other is a baccatum, both of which have very different, very distinctive flavors. To be honest, and I believe anyone who has grown Aji Limon will agree, the flavor of Aji Limon isn't exactly like a lemon...I can only describe it as "baccatum-y" in a quite wonderful way...The smaller baccatums are all similar in flavor, but the Aji Limon is especially so...Does that make sense?

Fatali is a whole 'nother beast. An awesome pepper, with orders of magnitude more heat than Aji Limon...

GA Growhead said:
P. Dreadie on a mac! Gary mac'in too!
Bought my first mac in 1992. :)
I set out for aji limons this year, but got aji pineapple instead. One of the three baccatums im growing this year (yay!). May have to try the limons next season after all.
Anyone have a comparison of the two?
Click to expand...

Cool Jason! You are way more of a veteran than I...My first Mac was a "Bondi Blue" iMac 233 I bought for grad school in 1999...Used it for hours every day until it finally wore out...Man, I loved that little jellybean of happiness... :P

I've never had the Aji Pineapple...I'm anxious to hear how yours come out!

How's it looking for your plant-out over there in the GA? I'm thinking maybe I'll set out some Jals this weekend...

JoynersHotPeppers said:
Wow Windchicken, that is a serious grow ^^^ I love using the zest of a lime and an Aji Lemon or Lemon Drop in a poultry or fish dish!
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Thanks! Oh man, now you've got me salivating! I love to use Aji Limon with my homegrown tomatillos and cilantro for a nice fresh (not cooked) "chips and dip" salsa...

P. Dreadie said:
windchicken .... your plants have the shape like mine ... I'm thinking .. needs lots of tying up. But your pods look much larger. Could be because your plants are larger. Hard to tell from a picture. The pods from mine range from tiny 3/8"- 1/2" long ones to the biggest at about 1" to 1 1/4" long. My big ones are about the size of most Thai peppers from the Thai markets. Mine also gave a great harvest. 2 plants gave me all I needed. I found one other picture of a plant. Not a great photo. I guess I didn't take many photos of them because the pods didn't look as sexy as other plants I grew. Even if they aren't scary or sexy looking .... they are great tasting ..

GA Growhead ... as of yet all I've grown is mainly chinese and some annuums . I'll have to give some other types a try sometime.

Peace,
P.Dreadie

Limon.jpg


windchicken ... do you think those seeds from Casa Depot are the same as what you're growing now ? Or another type adding to the confusion ?
Click to expand...

Hi Erin! Are all your Aji Limon plants in containers? That can definitely affect the size of your pods. The root ball wants lots of room to grow...Also, I get far larger pods later in the season, when the weather cools off. The piks I posted were from very late in the 2011 season, around the middle of November.

I'm 90% certain the Burpee "Hot Lemon" is actually Aji Limon. If you look in their catalog in the description for them they say something like "an improved version of a South American heirloom." I won't get on my soapbox about the subject right now, but I would like to say that it peeves me when American vendors find it necessary to change the name of a variety so the average gardener won't have to learn 2 or 3 new words from a foreign language. To me "Aji Limon" sounds wonderfully exotic, while "Lemon Drop" sounds insufferably cute...Burpee is one of the worst...but they have great seeds and I buy from them every year...
 
"I don't think you can really compare the two...One is a chinense and the other is a baccatum, both of which have very different, very distinctive flavors. To be honest, and I believe anyone who has grown Aji Limon will agree, the flavor of Aji Limon isn't exactly like a lemon...I can only describe as "baccatum-y" in a quite wonderful way...The smaller baccatums are all similar in flavor, but the Aji Limon is especially so...Does that make sense?"

Yes, that makes sense. The taste may be there but the extra fruity texture and taste isn't the same. Obviously Fataliis would be way hotter, I guess about 10 times for a really hot individual pod. I'm glad I'm going to be growing both. Probably 2 different uses in my food.
I have a few of those round, metal tomato cage, stands, whatever they are called with 3 layers of hoops for the plant to grow through. Do you think that would work good to hold these things up, or do I also need to put a stick in the center and tie them up as well?
 
I used tomato cages last year for my Aji Cristal plants, and they worked pretty well.....The plants out-grew the cages before long, though, and I ended up driving 3 stakes around each plant and weaving tomato twine around them....A sort of "3-D Florida Weave Trellis."

I would love to see pix of your plants....
 
Awesome Chris! What kind of fish do you use?

I don't have Aji Limon in the garden this year, but I've got a nice big Birgit's Locoto plant, a third-year overwinter, that should do nicely...
 
I just found this thread, and i am a first time grower to this pepper, lots of great info!!

I am very curious to try it now and see if it has a "lemony taste"

I went back and read this thread again, and HOLY COW windchicken, thats some garden!
 
I really want to thank you guys. Everyone came through with so much great info in here. I'm not even going to pinch these baby's. I want to try one as soon as they are ready now haha.
i also have Fatalis and love them so I think I'll be happy with these limons too!
 
cycadjungle said:
I just planted my seeds for this pepper today. So which pepper has a better, or stronger citrus taste? These or Fataliis?
Click to expand...
Hard to compare the two imho.

Minus the heat, Fatalii's have at least double the flavor, though the flavor is combined with a powerful Chinense taste.

The Aji Limon's that i grew had a mild citrus taste combined with a mild baccatum flavor (a good combo).

Fatalii's are also way hotter, and more of a lingering hot for me.
 
i'm with windy on this one, i think Burpee's hot lemon is an aji limon - mine are burpee's. i get the spikes like romy.

not growing them this year, no more room but they are a favourite and very easy to grow; kind of like a fresno, nice flavour with moderate heat but you can't grow everything all the time. the only problem i have with them, is at times the fruit stops ripening and turns mushy on the plant. could just be my cooler temperatures but my summers are a micro climate of ecuador, which should be perfect for the hot lemon. the pods quickly react to too much sunlight and show signs of sun-stress turning streaks of redish/brown. the plants do get quite tall and very fast.

the fruit is mild in lemon flavour and a first bite seems to be like a lemon squirting in your mouth, they seem to hold moisture. though the heat is not killer, it is initially hot, perhaps the oils from the squirt.

i made powder with mine and it has a wonderful smell and tangy taste.

as for fatalii, i have what appears to be 2 varieties, yellow and orange. you can't compare the fatalii yellow with hot lemon/aji limon as they are to completely different creatures and when you read descriptions of citrus flavour, not even the same citrus. orange fatalii is just stupid hot, over powers everything and if you do get a chance to examine the flavour, you quickly forget as the heat robs you of the memory. i have orange fatalii powder that i can only use sparingly, dusting and won't even let "heat braggers" give it a try. fatalii seem to be quite a hearty plant, mine just don't seem to want to die, my orange fatalii is going on 5 years old, yellow is 2 and starting to flower. my hot lemon seemed to have a shelf life of 2 years, then die.

good growing.
 
Dreadie...Those seeds were from the CPI. Good quality always, if not much variety of selection. Deep raised beds are the way to go for sure...

B.C....Now that you mention it, my fully ripe Aji Limon pods did tend to quickly shrivel on the plant in the very hottest part of the summer. I ended up harvesting only pods that still had a little green on them. Once it cooled off, however, most all the pods were firm and juicy.

Spice...It seems to me that Aji Limon has a very short freshness period...I know the flavor you're talking about, but it seems to me like it always showed up in pods that were a few days old...But then again one of my co-workers says about even the freshest Limon pods: "That tastes like something I ran over with the Bush Hog!"

As long as we're talking about it, there's another wonderful yellow C. baccatum that at first glance appears to be a very long version of Aji Limon, but the taste is very different, in a wonderfully savory way. The plant habit is very much the same, with the skinny, sprawling branches and the obnoxious productivity. Heat level is medium. Peppermania calls it Guyana PI199506. I wish it had a better name, but it's a great plant that every lover of baccatum peppers needs to try. This pik is from my 2011 grow:

guyana.jpg
 
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