“It’s really about redefining the lemons category.” “If you do that across so many properties, what you’re doing is you’re basically laying out a very steady supply curve,” Laffite says, before breaking out in a smile. More lemons are picked off in a couple weeks. That first pick will leave two thirds of the lemons still on the trees. If it’s colored up, we’ll get it as well,” Laffite says. He quickly takes a knife from his pocket and slices open the fruit to reveal the inside: no seeds, with a thin white rim around the edge and a light yellow rind. “We’ll come in here and if the fruit’s this size, it’s ready to come off. We basically say, just give me a little bit.” Laffite picks off a lemon. “We don’t want it all to come off at the same time. “What we want is the tree to justify how much fruit comes off,” Laffite says. Oa sunny, 58-degree day in Delano, California, Zak Laffite walks through groves of trees where he grows a special kind of lemon, and then stops to explain how harvesting it works.

Cuties and halos