Citrus juicer

We consume a lot of fresh juice at home. Not just from drinking but also for cooking. When I need the juice from just one or two fruits, I simply halve the fruits and squeeze them with my hands. But when there are a lot of fruits to be squeezed, some assistance is more than welcome — I use a juicer.

There are many kinds of juicers and the kind with a conical ridged center is only one of them. In fact, the juicer with the conical ridged center is actually a citrus juicer. We have two kinds at home, none of which requires electric power to operate. The first is handheld. Just push into the center of the halved fruit, twist and the juice is extracted. The pros: easy to use and easy to store. The con: the citrus seeds get extracted along with the juice and they need to be fished out before the juice can be used.

The second kind is the one that comes with a jar to catch the fruit juice. There is a built in strainer to catch the seeds.

The pros: You don’t have to fish out the seeds and you get much of the pulp bits into the juice. The con: It’s larger and it requires more storage space. It’s also more difficult to clean as you have to check if there are pulp bits clogging the strainer.

If you Google web images of citrus juicers, you’ll find that there are so many available designs — some more fancy looking than others.

If you’re talking about fruits that aren’t round with soft centers, some other tool and method may be required. For instance, fresh tamarind juice. I’m kind of old school when extracting tamarind juice. I do it manually with a fork, a strainer and a bowl. If you’re into electric gadgets, there are lots and lots of juice extractors in the market. Just plug it in, drop the cut fruits into the funnel and the machine automatically separates the juice from the skins, pulp and seeds. We used to have one of those, a gift from one of Speedy’s clients, but it didn’t last very long.

What tool do you use to extract the juice from fruits? Are they worth the price?