This Year's Growth

Here's another view of the new growth at the top of a persimmon tree,
including some hard to reach persimmons.  So pretty.

The Drying Room

The process of making hoshigaki begins with peeling and stringing the persimmons.  Ideally they dry outside first for a while, but this process is very dependent on the weather.  Only one stand of newly peeled persimmons was outside when I visited.  This drying room was the intermediate step.  The door was open and a fan was running, and when I got here, each persimmon was being individually worked by hand.  After they dry here for a while they move to a third room which was much more temperature-controlled.  There the persimmons lose their orange color completely, and when they're done they look like they're coated in sugar.  The finished hoshigaki is very sweet and chewy; not tough like a dried apricot, more like a gum drop. 

Persimmon Tree

Otow Orchard is generations old, and the trees are so pretty.  They have this great gnarled old look to them, but they're neatly trimmed each season, and the year's new branches come out stick straight.  With the beautiful orange persimmons it just makes for such a great abstract. 

Otow Orchard

Otow Orchard produces and sells a lot more than just persimmons and hoshigaki over the course of the year including seasonal vegetables, although they seem to primarily be a fruit producing orchard.  I got a chance to walk around the orchard and of course the persimmons stood out, because of their beautiful fall color.  I'm told that last week the trees were all covered with these bright orange leaves.  Yesterday most of the trees were bare; only a few were still holding their leaves. 

Hoshigaki

I'm very excited about this series of photos from Otow Orchard ("Oh Toe") in Granite Bay.  I've dried persimmons at my house using a food dehydrator, but it's nothing like the process used here.  Hoshigaki literally means dried persimmon, and at Otow Orchard they preserve the Japanese art of drying whole persimmons.  It's a time-consuming process with each persimmon peeled, hung, and then massaged, and rotated every few days for three to six weeks.  A real delicacy!  You can expect to see more persimmon photos in the coming days...