Orthogonally persistent Java combines the power of abstraction over persistence with Java’s rich programming environment. In this paper we report our experience in designing and implementing orthogonally persistent Java. Our design approach is anchored by the view that any system that brings together Java and orthogonal persistence should as far as possible avoid diluting the strengths of Java or the principles of orthogonal persistence. Our approach is thus distinguished by three features: complete transparency of persistence, support for both intra and inter application concurrency through ACID transactions, and the preservation of Java’s property of portability. In addition to discussing design and implementation, we present results that show that our approach performs credibly.