Their bulb wrappers tend to be very thick, luxuriant and parchment-like and tightly cover their few, but large, cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are often very white and tend to some purple striping as you peel away the wrappers. Their appearance tempts one to wonder whether they were sculpted by some great artist rather than something grown in the ground.
Porcelains are generally strong tasting garlics with a few exceptions and store well, if grown well.
In our experience, if adverse weather occurs during the growing season, storability is drastically shortened, especially if there's drought following by an early, hot spring. Clove covers tend to be somewhat longish and a golden brown color with distinctive vertical, purplish streaks. Porcelain garlics usually have anywhere from 4 to 6 cloves and is large enough that even the interior cloves are generally of good size. For those who want to grow their own garlic it takes two or three years to grow all you can eat. Porcelains harvest late in mid-season just before the Silverskins.