Lemon melon: Japanese farmers create new sweet and sour fruit

It is being cultivated in limited quantities in Hokkaido by horticulture company Suntory Flowers

Farmers in Japan have created a new fruit by breeding a melon with lemons. Photo: Suntory

Farmers in Hokkaido, Japan, have created a new fruit.

It’s currently being called “lemon melon” as it is round and juicy, tastes sweet like a melon and also slightly sour like a lemon.

It looks like a watermelon, but without the stripes, while the inside is white. According to reports, the texture of the fruit starts out crisp like a pear, but as it ripens, it gets much softer, so there are several different ways to enjoy it.

The new fruit is being cultivated in limited quantities by five farmers in Hokkaido.

According to Japan Today, Suntory Flowers – the Japanese horticulture company that developed the fruit – said it bred the unique offering from a type of melon originally imported from overseas and have been working on it for the past five years.

The current product, which is propagated with lemons, is the result of countless experiments on cultivation methods and harvest times, and this is the first year that they can sell them.

According to the Suntory website, the melon is “a perfect reward dessert of hot summer with refreshing acidity".

This year, the company is expecting to cultivate about 3,800 lemon melons, which will be sold in Sapporo supermarkets until the end of August. They currently retail for 3,220 yen ($22) each.

This is the latest addition to Japan's luxury fruit market, which includes items such as white strawberries, square-shaped watermelons, the Dekopon citrus, a hybrid of mandarin and oranges, as well as Ruby Roman grapes and Miyazaki mangoes, the most expensive in the world.