Mikan (Mandarin Orange) Day

What Is Mikan Day?

December 3rd is "Mikan Day" in Japan. The National Fruit Producers and Shippers Stabilization Council and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries set two Mikan Days a year -- November 3 and December 3 -- from the wordplay "ii (11 or 12) mikka (3rd) n," which sounds like "good mikan." The fruit is written with characters read "mikkan" in older usage, which is what makes the pun work. The aim is to widen consumption of the fruit most associated with Japanese winter.

Japan's Mikan, by the Numbers

According to the Ministry of Agriculture's crop statistics, the 2025 (Reiwa 7) mikan harvest came to 656,300 tonnes nationwide. Wakayama Prefecture led with 145,200 tonnes (22%), followed by Ehime with 121,800 tonnes (19%), Shizuoka (14%), Kumamoto with 76,800 tonnes (12%), and Nagasaki with 38,200 tonnes (6%). Those five prefectures account for roughly 70% of the crop. By harvest timing, early-season unshu varieties make up about 60%.

• The 1975 peak: 3,665,000 tonnes -- today's harvest is under a fifth of that
• Alternate bearing: heavy "on" years and light "off" years tend to alternate
• Unshu mikan: seedless and peelable by hand, arriving in extra-early, early and standard waves
• Late citrus: shiranuhi, setoka and harumi come into their own from January through March

What Is in a Mikan

Japan's Standard Tables of Food Composition put the vitamin C in unshu mikan flesh at 32 mg per 100 g. With an adult recommended intake of 100 mg a day, a few mikan cover a good share of it. Beta-cryptoxanthin, the pigment behind the orange color, is listed at 1,700 micrograms (1.7 mg) per 100 g in the food composition tables, and a survey by the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization found at least 1 mg per 100 g in early, mid and late-season mikan alike. Sweeter fruit has also been reported to contain more of it. Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization has run a long-running study among residents of Mikkabi, Shizuoka, tracking blood beta-cryptoxanthin levels and health.

Choosing and Keeping Them

Even within one box from one orchard, no two taste quite the same -- and you can judge a fair amount by eye.

• Stem scar: smaller is better; fruit borne on thinner branches tends to lose water and concentrate flavor
• Skin: deep color, fine texture and a taut surface; loose, puffy skin often means a watery, weaker taste
• Shape: slightly flattened fruit is generally sweeter than tall, rounded fruit
• Storage: unpack a whole box at once and keep it somewhere cool and airy, rotating the lower layers up

Tips for Marking This Day

• Keep one or two on your desk at work for an afternoon break
• Eat the thin inner membrane along with the segment for the fiber
• Taste two from different prefectures side by side and compare sweetness against acidity
• Look up where your box came from and find that landscape on a map

A Winter Fixture, Looked at Again

Mikan under a kotatsu heated table still stands for winter in Japan, even with the harvest below a fifth of its peak. December 3 is a day to spare a thought for where the fruit in your hand grew, and which variety it is.