"Red Beauty", a premium variety of mandarin orange from Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province, is growing in popularity around the country. [Photo/taizhou.com.cn]

"Red Beauty", a premium variety of mandarin orange from Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province, is growing in popularity around the country.

Originating in Japan, Red Beauty was introduced to Taizhou in 2006. Due to its pleasurable taste and pleasant aroma, it costs a whopping 50 yuan ($7.46) per kilogram on average.

Taizhou has a long history of growing mandarin oranges, but Red Beauty is reshaping the industry.

Xu Jianguo, deputy head of the Zhejiang Provincial Research Institute of Mandarin Oranges, said that Red Beauty is grown all over the country, but due to specific light and temperature conditions, along with a number of other factors, the fruit produced in Zhejiang is the highest quality.

In recent years, the planting area in Zhejiang for Red Beauty has risen by 30 to 50 percent annually and has become the fourth largest mandarin orange species in the province, according to Xu.

Huang Darong from Huangyan county of Taizhou was among the first local farmers to grow Red Beauty.

He first established his Red Beauty plantation in 2014 and it has since grown to a size of more than 50 mu (3.3 hectares).

In a contest organized by the Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs this year, the Red Beauty grown by Huang won first place.

Huang revealed that the profits for Red Beauty can reach 50,000 to 60,000 yuan per mu.

But along with high yields come high risks, as Red Beauty is highly susceptible to disease.

Huang said that the time required to grow Red Beauty is at least three times longer than other mandarin orange species.

Official data shows the plantation area of the fruit in Taizhou early this year exceeded 12,000 mu, with an output of more than 4,500 tons.

Tao Kaiquan, a Red Beauty farm owner, predicted that with the expansion in planting scale, the price of Red Beauty will come down in the next few years and is expected to settle at around 20 per kilogram.