Tam-O-Pan Persimmon
The fruit of the persimmon cultivar, Tam-O-Pan, is large and almost 4 sided with an obvious indentation around the middle that surrounds the persimmon. The Tam-O-Pan Persimmon Trees were introduced into the United States from China by the Department of Agriculture in 1905. Ten years after being introduced into the U.S. market in 1915 the Tam-O-Pan cultivar was grown on a commercial scale from North Carolina to Florida. Normally the Tam-O-Pan Persimmons are astringent until they have fully softened and ripened to a red-orange color, when the pulp resembles jello with a rich flavor. An interesting fact is that even though the Tam-O-Pan Persimmons are astringent in the U.S. they are non-astringent is China and Japan. The size of the Tam-O-Pan Persimmon can approach 5 inches in size, about the size of a large grapefruit, and it begins to ripen its fruit in October in Georgia and can drop off the tree to some extend during huge crop years.