Here’s the amazing Sweet Tart
This fruit is absolutely amazing! As you can see in the pictures, this fruit was allowed to get wrinkly before I cut it open.
A little background regarding this variety helps to know when to pick the fruit. Sweet Tart is a Zill Indochinese seedling(ZIC/ZINC) and like it’s parent, it can get cracks in the skin. In order to avoid this issue, you pick it mature green with a blush of yellow or with yellow streaks going down the side. You can also look for sap beads. I got this information from the excellent videos that Chris from Truly Tropical posted.
ZIC
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EMtn8sMwmXAhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a1TaIWAD4ZQSweet Tart
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99bv-KJ8wkEHere in SoCal, you often see the lenticels getting dark and the sap beads are also very obvious. When picked mature green as described above, they are often still rock hard and can take from as little as a few days to ripen or up to about three weeks.
The more under ripe they are when picked, the longer it seems to take for it to ripen and the more wrinkly they get but even in that wrinkly state, they reach high Brix levels, the flesh is still firm and there is no funky over ripe taste.
Here’s that same wrinkly skinned Sweet Tart cut open.
Even though this fruit was wrinkly, the stem end was not fully soft ripe. There was a gradient of flavor profiles and textures with the nose being perfectly soft ripe, very sweet with a little acidity. The middle of this fruit was medium firm ripe and very sweet with excellent acidity, perfect for my liking. About the last 20%, the stem or Butt end of the fruit was still relatively firm with slight chalkiness and a more in your face Tart like a sour patch kid candy. The flesh also stuck tenaciously to the skin.
If the fruit were allowed to ripen on the tree for perhaps another week or so, it would have probably ripened earlier and more consistently. I just wanted to bring up this point to show how forgiving this exceptional variety is.
You can accidentally pick it a little too early and still have it ripen up. Not only that, by picking it mature green, you may be able to avoid theft and animals from getting to the fruit before you’re able to harvest it.
Picking aside, Sweet Tart is also very forgiving in regards to counter ripening. If you eat it while still firm, it will have a spritely sour kick along with that greener Indochinese flavor. Let it hang out on the counter for a few more days to soften a bit more and you get that perfect sweet and tart balance. Accidentally or purposely let it get soft and wrinkly and you get mostly sweet with very little tart with the exception of prematurely harvested fruit sometimes displaying a gradient of flavors and textures and perhaps more tart than would otherwise be expected.
All this and the tree is Vigorous and disease resistant! This is a dream come true for SoCal mango growers. And, just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, you come to find that Sweet Tart has two hot sisters(Venus and Kathy) that might be tastier than her. Not only that but, mom ZIC can still pull her own weight and is a good producer, at least in Florida.
Based on preliminary results, it appears that ZIC, Sweet Tart, Venus and Kathy are all productive in SoCal. Here’s another Sweet Tart that was ready a couple days ago but hey, it’s Sweet Tart, it’ll still be fine in another day or two.
Simon