I have never liked orange juice. Well, I never used to like orange juice…that is until I discovered “freshly squeezed” orange juice. Fortunately with the advent of modern technology, many small and large grocery stores now offer “freshly squeezed” juice. I say “freshly squeezed” because there’s several commercial food companies that offer “fresh squeezed” orange juice in neatly packaged, factory produced containers. In fact the juice was maybe “fresh squeezed” before it was packaged but it has now been preserved or frozen and been sitting in the juice section for several days or weeks. Real freshly squeezed orange juice tastes different, looks different and in my opinion well worth the extra price.

Anyway, when we had our bed and breakfast we only served freshly squeezed orange juice that I would buy at the nearest store that had a juice machine. Squeezing my own was cost prohibitive, time consuming and when juice oranges were available not always juicy enough or sweet enough, probably because they are not coming to us right off the tree.

Last year we met a local girl, Anita, from Palm Springs. One day she offered us some tangerines she picked off of a heavily laden tree in her back yard. Because they were quite seedy and extremely juicy she said they were better suited for juicing and she was right. The juice was wonderful! Well on Thursday, Anita gave us a huge bag of tangerines she had just picked and I spent an hour washing them and juicing them. Oh my, the juice is divine and there is nothing quite like it. Preparing it and drinking it was for me a California moment!