Pots of gold

The late Hong Kong author and historian Austin Coates once astonished me with a list of fruits that we assume to be typically Asian but were, in fact, introduced to the region by the Portuguese in the 16th century, mostly from South America. It included the pineapple, guava, papaya, custard apple - and peanut. Tangerines, however, are unambiguously East Asian, with a history that goes back as far as China's records themselves.

The association of the tangerine with the Lunar New Year presumably began because February is when the fruits are ripe. Their colour must, from the start, have been associated with gold, and the fruit's Chinese name, a pun on good luck, would have inevitably followed.

Tangerines are everywhere in northern Taiwan at this time, crowding the trees 'like golden lamps in a green night', as the English poet Andrew Marvell wrote. Frequently, they are available on a 'pick your own' basis, with families driving up, collecting a plastic crate, and clambering up the hillsides in search of the golden booty.

I visited one such farm recently, in Taipei's Neihou district, on the edge of the volcanic hills of Yangmingshan, and the price was NT$25 ($6) per catty, with an entrance fee of NT$40. Although the prices were about the same as in the local market, most people appeared to be leaving with as much as they could carry.

The farmer told me that the fruit flourished well on hills with good drainage and plenty of sunlight. Anyway, it was hard to grow anything else on the slopes. He had about 2,000 trees, he said, and I judged each bore 150 tangerines. Not a bad harvest, you would think. But the farmer said this was not as good a crop as most, on account of December's typhoon, the first in that month for 100 years.

Young people were unwilling to do this work, he said - a familiar complaint of farmers the world over. His profits had been lower ever since Taiwan's entry into the World Trade Organisation led to quotas, a sharp fall in government subsidy and cheap imports on a large scale.