Welcome the Masumotos and Their Amazing Stone Fruit

“Does it taste like a story? That’s when you know it is ripe.” - David Mas Masumoto & Nikiko Masumoto

We are very excited to introduce our newest partner to the Rootstock lineup—welcome Masumoto Family Farm to the store! Most famous for their spectacular peaches (we can't wait!), we're starting with apricots, and they are amazing. Ours make the short trip from Del Rey, in California's Central Valley—but before they reach your kitchen, let's take a closer look at the long journey of this well-traveled fruit.

Origins of the Apricot

The botanical name for the apricot is Prunus armeniaca—"the Armenian plum." Evidence of the apricot's long life in Armenia runs deep. At ancient sites like Shengavit and Garni, archaeologists have pulled apricot pits from the earth that are as much as 6,000 years old. Surely, everyone assumed, a fruit buried that deep in Armenian soil was Armenian-born.

But the apricot was only passing through. Thousands of miles east, in China, archaeologists later found even older apricots—pits preserved in the waterlogged ground of a roughly 7,000-year-old Neolithic village. The apricot had been in Armenia a very long time, but it had been in Asia longer.

From that homeland it made one of history's great journeys west along the Silk Road—the roughly 4,000-mile web of caravan routes that linked China to the Mediterranean for more than 1,500 years. Traders carried silk, spices, ideas—and, perhaps for snacking on along the way, apricots.

Masumoto Family Farm

The Masumoto Family Farm sits on 80 certified-organic acres in Del Rey, just south of Fresno. The first acres were bought in 1948 by Takashi "Joe" Masumoto, after the family returned to California following their unjust incarceration during World War II. To plant an orchard is an act of faith in the future—a bet that you'll still be there, years on, to taste what you put in the ground—and the family has been keeping that faith for four generations since.

They are best known for fruit that the modern grocery trade had all but given up on. When the heirloom Sun Crest peach was disappearing from stores—too soft, too fragile, too fleeting to ship and shelve like the tougher new commercial varieties—David "Mas" Masumoto chose to keep growing it anyway, and wrote a book about that choice, Epitaph for a Peach. It became a quiet manifesto – not just for flavor over convenience, but for stewarding the land, preserving agricultural diversity, and honoring the people who care for both.

"I have been trying to farm a new way, working with, and not against, nature, which always requires a certain risk and willingness to experiment." - David Mas Masumoto

That's exactly why we're proud to carry their fruit. The Masumoto family grows for taste, stewardship, and community, not for travel. Those are the same values that inspire Rootstock– and why we work to bring fruit like this from a family farm to your table when it’s at its most delicious. Their apricot orchard is young: planted only a couple of years ago, this is among its first large harvests. A four-generation peach-growing family is branching into apricots, and we’re grateful to share the first big crop with the Rootstock community.

Nutrition with a Secret Almond Heart

Masumoto's Golden Sweet is a bright golden-orange, freestone apricot—the pit pops right out. The flesh is firm and smooth, with an intensely sweet apricot flavor carrying a little tang and an almond-like roundness. That freestone quality is a real gift in the kitchen: easy to halve, easy to pit, easy to cook. Eat them out of hand, roast or grill them until they slump and caramelize, fold them into a tart or a batch of jam, or lean savory—apricots love rosemary, honey, and roast chicken.

They're as good for you as they are good tasting. That deep orange color is beta-carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A; apricots also bring vitamin C, potassium, and fiber to the table, all in a fruit you can eat by the handful.

And then there's the secret inside. Apricots belong to the rose family, Rosaceae, alongside peaches, plums, cherries—and almonds. Crack the stone and the kernel within looks, and tastes, remarkably like an almond. It's that kernel, not the nut, that traditionally flavors amaretto and amaretti cookies, lending them their soft almond perfume. A reminder that this fruit has a quiet kinship with half the orchard.

And the Peaches Are Coming

For now, savor the apricots—golden, fleeting, and at their peak right now. But consider this the opening note. As summer deepens, the fruit that made Masumoto famous arrives: those legendary peaches, grown by the same hands, with the same stubborn devotion to flavor. If the apricots are this good, the wait won't be long, and it will be worth every day. Get the apricots while they last—and keep an eye on the store as the season turns.

In the meantime, we highly encourage you to pick up a copy of these incredible books from the family and dive into the storytelling. 

Epitach for a Peach (Bookshop.org)

Every Peach Is A Story (Bookshop.org)