Ume have been progressively dropping for a week or two now and are on in earnest now. I'm in NE and have a friend in NoPo who is also fully on to the extent that they've offered to sell per pound thru July 3. I mean to get over there to see those stems, hopefully before their fruits all off.
I'm about to put out some blankets and do some limb shaking. Was recommended ten or more years ago by friends who had trees in Northern Cal. Usually, I'm looking to pick up drops twice daily and pick the fruits that release to the touch a few times during the season, allowing those not yet yielding to achieve their (more) fullness. Ume are mostly used in processes, in the green state. They become rapidly more quickly perishable as they color. Ripe and colored Ume smell much like apricot. Fresh ripe flesh would present as what might be called kind of a smooth mealy texture. Green ripe/full plums should give a little bit of water/juice as you test between your teeth. Not going to be a squirt or a drip down your chin as with other plums. I have a small fruit variety, the pit is pretty near when you put tooth to it. Not a freestone sort. The fresh fruit flavor has a bitterness that in the processing yields to a sourness. Nothing that I would call sweetness, and near as I can tell, Ume are never used as a fresh fruit, eaten out of hand. Although I'd suppose one could put one in an alcoholic beverage similar to what I've seen in the movies, an olive or such, for the aromatics. I did make a few small experimental batches of jam. Half filed a glass with pits and pulp that stayed attached after cooking with OG evaporated cane sugar then running through an old hand food mill (there must be a better way) and topped it up with the least favored 'naturally' flavored carbonated water in the house.... quite an improvement.
Anyway
Ume's on.
Here on the bottom land of the south Valley, we got some nasty late winter / early spring ice storm every 3-5 years. I lost my Kan Kobai ume tree in the spring deep freeze of 2012. I have since "saved" my ume on a branch of a volunteer weedy plum (probably Myrobalan root stock hybridized with ornamental plum, such as Thunder Cloud). While it blooms every year, the flowers often got hit with freezing weather. I have never got any fruit, until this year. I got … uh ... TWO, and they are turning yellow/red just now. I am not going to do anything with such a great "crop."
Over years on this forum I've always appreciated the ume photos posted by sweepbjames. Beautiful trees. I'd assume in the city the microclimate is also nicer to the trees.
In the east Asian culinary culture, ume is not considered a fruit, but more of a "food material" for making something else. The fully developed flavor of ume is not something one can conjure up from the ripe fruits off the tree. Actually the ripe fruit is not used. As pointed out by Sweepbjames, it's the green fruits before fully ripened. (At this time of the year some Asian grocery stores might have green ume for sale, at about $10/pound.)
Before losing my own tree, I used to harvest 1-2 pounds of unripe fruits each year and made umeshu or ume vinegar for drinking. (Making traditional ume preserves would take a lot more efforts, ... so I am not going to say anything about it.)
There are umeshu recipes online. It is nothing but sugar, liquor, and green ume. My own umeshu tasted just as good as commercial ones. For those in PDX who had not tasted umeshu before, I'd say go to Uwajimaya store to get a bottle of it. (When I lived in Beaverton long ago, the store there carried quite many brands from Japan. They did not taste the same. Among those I have sampled, Choya was still the best IMO, though it was a bit pricier.) The typical way to enjoy is just umeshu on the rocks. But I tend to shy away from strong alcoholic things, so my combination is umeshu + Trader Joe's Tart Cherry Juice + ice cubes.
Ume infused vinegar is even easier, just soak the green ume in a vinegar for a few (6 or much longer) months. I'd use mild tasting vinegar such as white Medina Vinegar or some white wine vinegar. Avoid rice or cider vinegar. To drink it, just add water and honey, just like other drinking vinegar.
There are other easy/fun ways to sample the flavor/uses of ume without growing a tree, especially in the PDX metro area. But this post is getting long, I'd better stop. 
Visited the friend in Portland who has a couple of mature Ume trees, the one who has 'em offered. the micro climate 1.5 miles from my place... but sheltered next to her house, they're dropping is substantially on the uptick but a little behind mine, that are a little more in the open. Variety is a similar size to mine, a little more and redder blushing on even the greenest sets. Maybe due to more western exposure. Oh, said this year Ume plums were going for $15 a pound at the Beaverton store.
ET That's exciting, getting to fruit.
You mention the name Kan Kobai. I am totally ignorant of any and all Ume variety names. Just over my head. I recognize it could well be like apples, lots of named varieties of Ume I'd suppose.Yet, I'm like those who recognize just green or red apples with the occasional yellow an interesting oddity. I have subscribed to my myopic view that there may exist only two Ume variations: a white flowering, smaller fruiting such as I acquired from friends with an Ume orchard in N.California. They also had a pink flowering, which I assumed was the/a larger fruited Ume. I never saw the orchard in blossom, (that would be intoxicating by itself; with the fragrance wafting wide in the morning and evening as humidity and or temperatures interplay) and I never did really happen upon those larger fruited trees (recall something about there being maybe 6 interspersed among around 430 some trees at the time) during the sojourns a few years running during harvest season but I know from seeing the leftover alcohol exchanged plums from umeshu. Also friends inland, in Chico, had larger plums set in buckets in an isolated room with the AC/swamp-cooler set high to keep, while preparing for processing. At the time I hadn't the thought to ask anyone about varieties.
Internet searching recipes this morn, to add to your list was an Ume Shrub; Ume, sugar and vinegar (pictured Braggs Cider, another said definitely no to cider vinegar, wanted something more delicate,) and a few weeks.
Also Umeshoyu: Green Ume set in Shoyu/Soy sauce, equal parts, keep cool 'n dark and shake everyday. Ready in 3-4 weeks, remove Ume. Keeps in the fridge a year or so. That's an easy couple to make if you get an abundance of Ume. (I agree umeboshi making is a lot of steps and time.) Credit those recipes to happy donabe life at the dot com (no spaces, you know).
I have bad cultural habits while getting a history, maybe longer, with various growing entities. Stuff sits in pots maybe for years or they grow through 'em where I set them down to think on it further where they should go, maybe takes a while to figure out how to prune specifically for this particular, beyond the general, custom like, as observation refines the approach. Anyway had a robust one (Ume), planted it in the ground after a year or so of luckily keeping it alive, similarly with another couple with that similar pattern of wait till you got to do something or lose 'em. Planted them in close proximity to the first, one S, one W. within 5' of the original planted. They languished, did not thrive. Eventually passed on the sickly and advantageous aphis to the robust one. Took out the come-lately(s). A few more years, frustrated and overwhelmed at my attempts at bad pruning etc, I finally cut it off at the ground, done, that's it, over. It sprouted back from the roots (these here are not 'suckery'.) I've tried to be more diligent on the second chance to not let it get out of hand. Much more satisfying.. All that to say there is a certain amount of resiliency in those stems. Even in this less than optimal for stone fruit climate zone.
ET, I think where you are might be a little more Ume friendly generally. If you've got an extra branch or two that need pruning, you might consider trying your luck at rooting a couple of pieces. Joanie researched it, I think the recommendation was using 1/2 green wood. Intuitionally, now-ish seems like a good time to try, if you want to start a stand alone Ume tree.
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