Author Topic: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting  (Read 14061 times)

simon_grow

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2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« on: October 11, 2019, 12:17:58 AM »
We had our annual mango tasting event today at Frank’s mom’s place and everyone had a blast. There were at least 52 different varieties of Mangos, Annonas, Sapodillas, Dragonfruit, Pomegranates, Asian Pears, Pineapple Pear, Passionfruit, Canistel(Eggfruit), White Sapote, Avocados and even a Watermelon.

One of the main contributors of Mangos couldn’t make it last minute, otherwise there would be even more varieties to sample. We were so stuffed from all the Mangos that we didn’t, or couldn’t find room to sample many of the other fruit.

Here is a link to the last mango tasting for reference:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=25557.0

First of all, I want to give a big shout out to Frank and his awesome mother for hosting this event. It takes a lot of planning and work to harvest all these Mangos and try to get them to be perfectly ripe in time for this event. I know that some of the contributors had to use heat mats to try to force ripen these fruit and some of the fruit had to be refrigerated in order to prevent them from over ripening for this tasting.

Franks mom is a sweetheart and always has a smile on her face. She treats everyone like family and welcomed everyone into her home with open arms. Frank definitely won the lottery with his mom.

I’ll post a few pictures tonight and then add more information and flavor descriptions as I have time.



Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2019, 12:20:50 AM »











simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2019, 12:22:08 AM »











FloridaBoy

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2019, 12:30:25 AM »
I love seeing all them Sindhri mangoes.  I hope you giys enkoyed yourselves.

Oolie

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2019, 12:31:40 AM »
Eagerly awaiting your tasting opinions.

Especially interested in the Indian varieties.

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #5 on: October 11, 2019, 02:41:23 AM »
I’ll report the Brix readings tomorrow and I’ll just give a quick description of a few Mangos that stood out for me today.

My favorite mango for today was Venus. I’ve had Venus Mangos the last several years and they have been consistently excellent but this year, they were absolutely incredible! The size of the Venus was similar to the size of a Sweet Tart and the fruit was extremely sweet with a Brix reading of 24-25%. This mango wasn’t just sweet, it had a deep rich, intense Indochinese flavor that surpassed even Sweet Tart. The Crazy strong Indochinese flavor intensified as you got closer to the skin. This mango was Perfect! I’ve had Venus when it was good-excellent but today’s sampling just rocked my world. It was that good.


We sampled 3 Venus fruit today. The first one had a Brix reading of 24% and dropped jaws, it was the first heavy hitter and there was unanimous consensus that it was the bomb. It tasted similar to a Sweet Tart from my memory and I thought to myself, “boy, I wish I could taste a Venus side by side with a Sweet Tart”. The mango tasting was very fast pace and before I could open my mouth to make my suggestion, another mango was already cut up and in my hand.

Let me step back for a minute now and explain how we do things at these mango tastings. We usually have at least one person cutting the fruit, one person taking pictures, one person taking Tasting notes, two people taking Brix readings and at least one person passing out cut fruit. We were a bit short handed today and with 52 varieties of Mangos to plow through, it was quite a daunting task.

Frank was frantically cutting the fruit and our tradition says that the first piece goes to the Brix tester. I’m usually one of the Brix testers but Warren was kind enough to offer his help which freed me up to take tasting notes. After the Brix tester gets a reading, he/she reads it out and I write it down along with a description of the flavor profile. I only write down descriptions of Mangos that pop out in terms of flavor as there is very little time between Mangos.

Thinking back, I don’t know how we made it through the day without anyone losing their fingers! Frank used a knife about as long as a Samurai sword to cut the Mangos and people were reaching in to grab a piece as he was still cutting. If you’ve seen the Sulcata Grove videos and worried that one of Greg’s family members would get cut, this was at least 100x more scary. Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah, Venus is bomb!

We kept eating mangos and I was excited when Frank was about to cut another Venus. I was wondering if this Venus was going to be as good as the first and it was just as good. This second Venus has a slightly lower Brix reading of 23.5% but like the first Venus, it had the absolute Perfect sugar acid balance and intense Indochinese flavor. As I was beginning my thought about how wonderful it would be to compare this Venus to a Sweet..... I found myself with a CAC in my hand. Haha, I know, I know. CAC is AKA COC but I kid you not, it was in my hand before I could suggest Sweet Tart.


The day progressed and some people had to tap out. They couldn’t take so much sugar and mango in one day. Rookies. Anyways, I wasn’t sure if there were any more Venus Mangos but I decided to speak up and told Ashok “ boy, I wish we could taste the Venus and Sweet Tart side by side”. Then like magic, Frank and Ashok pulled out a Venus followed by a Sweet Tart, heck yeah!

They first cut open the Venus and gave a piece to Warren for the Brix reading but before Warren called out the Brix, Behl said, “wow, this is the best one of the day”. I immediately reached in for a piece, by this time, the samurai sword was swapped out for a more modest fruit knife. Warren then called out the Brix of 25% just as I took a bite of this mind altering mango. That sealed the deal, everyone just looked at each other and shook their head, nodding yes as a big grin fell on all our faces.

Yes it happened, we all experienced a simultaneous foodgasm! “Supremely delicious”, as Har would say. This third and final Venus was only 1% Brix higher than the first fruit but it was just that much sweeter and intensely flavored. I almost forgot about the Sweet Tart.

The first Sweet Tart that was cut was grown on Ataulfo rootstock. It had a Brix reading of 23% and the flesh had a deep orange color. The flesh was thick and dense and the juice was viscous from the sugars. Upon first bite, I thought it was delicious but kept thinking back on the last Venus that we just sampled not one minute ago. Hmmm, which one is better? My past experiences tell me that Sweet Tart is the better of the two siblings so it was difficult to admit that this Venus was better today but it was.

Don’t get me wrong, Sweet Tart was amazing and excellent but Venus had a better and more intense Indochinese flavor. It just hit all the notes that one would want in a mango. It was perfectly balanced in every sense. The sugars, acidity, depth of flavor profile, all perfectly balanced, I mean perfect!

Ok, I didn’t plan on raving about Venus at such length so I’m going to stop here and report about the other favorites tomorrow. We did also get to sample ZINC, the parent of both Sweet Tart and Venus, if I recall correctly, but the ZINC was harvested prematurely and had a Brix of 18% and tasted very watered down.




Keep in mind that weather was a bit cooler this year compared to last couple years and perhaps it was an “on year” for Venus and an “off year” for Sweet Tart. We know that Sweet Tarts can get to about 32% Brix and I wonder if we compared a Venus and Sweet Tart of the exact same Brix, which one would taste better?

Mangos vary year to year and as Leo Manuel says, “ that’s why we need to sample the fruit and compare them year to year”. I’m extremely excited about the Zill Indochinese progeny. We know that Sweet Tart and Venus are excellent and we are still waiting to evaluate Kathy(K3) but one thing is sure. We owe Gary Zill a big shout out for creating/selecting these awesome new mango varieties!

Not only are they incredibly delicious but they are also showing us that they can be very disease resistant when grown in SoCal. Even when my Lemon Zest tree was covered in Powdery Mildew, my Venus Graft held several fruit to maturity on a small graft. Yes, they can get some micro cracking on the skin but this seems to be rare.

I almost had second thoughts about posting how delicious the Venus is because I don’t want everyone ordering all the Venus scion, leaving nothing for me but some things are just too good to keep a secret. Please save me a few scions for next year whom ever is growing Venus and Kathy!
Simon

Oolie

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #6 on: October 11, 2019, 05:05:25 AM »
Wow, I can sense from the energy in the post that it was written during a sugar high. Gotta love the tasting jitters.

Thank you for cataloging the details like the brix, it's good to know how excellent a 25 brix Venus is, it would be interesting to taste against other indochinese mangoes of similar brix.

How was the texture on the Venus? Is it dense/creamy?

JF

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #7 on: October 11, 2019, 11:17:59 AM »
Thanks Simon for the report and your kind words about my mother. This mango season has been weird in the sense that we are about 4-5 weeks behind schedule. We didn’t start to warm up until July as a result the mangos were late in ripening. This tasting was in the verge of being of being canceled due to the ripening uncertainty and the periodic time I’ve been out of town. Thanks to other organizers it happen but I was given one week to harvest and ripen my mangos. Although some mangos didn’t ripen correctly I was surprise of some of the high brix reading. The brix reading were similar to the July tasting with mangos exclusively from Florida. I was disappointed with a few top tier var ( LZ, Cotton Candy, HK) that did not perform well due early harvesting and to the rapid ripening process that I used. Overall the tasting was a success we serve lunch and dove right into the tasting.i want to thank Simon and everyone else that made this happen. Here is a list of my top 5 mangos.

Venus
ST
Valcaririe
Parson
HK

mbmango

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #8 on: October 11, 2019, 11:39:47 AM »
Great report!  Next time someone needs to tap out, let me know :P

behlgarden

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #9 on: October 11, 2019, 11:53:00 AM »
thank you Frank and your mom for hosting the event. it was great to see all including Brad. As always, looking for the next event (Cherimoya tasting)

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #10 on: October 11, 2019, 12:17:59 PM »
I love seeing all them Sindhri mangoes.  I hope you giys enkoyed yourselves.

The event was a blast and everyone had a great time. It was incredible to sit down in front of two big tables filled with home grown fruit, chatting about fruit and trees with Legends like Leo Manuel and Rudy Haluza.

There were a few Sindhri mangos that we sampled yesterday but unfortunately they were not in their prime. They had a Brix of 13 and 14 and were very bland. Perhaps they were picked early or it just was t their year.

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #11 on: October 11, 2019, 12:35:22 PM »
Eagerly awaiting your tasting opinions.

Especially interested in the Indian varieties.

The Indian Mangos didn’t shine this year. The Kesar and Alphonso were probably picked too early and they only reached 10 and 15 Brix, respectively. The fake Kesar, fake Alphonso and Banganpalli were also washed out this year. Many of the Mangos has to be picked very early in order for them to ripen in time for this event.

One of the Sunrise Mangos was bland with a Brix of 15% and another Sunrise was much sweeter with a Brix of 20 but it lacked complexity and depth of flavor.

Madras was bland with a Bix of 10. Mohan was bland with a Brix of 14%.

Safeda had a Brix of 18% and tasted like a Manilla mango.

A new mango for me was the C321. It was a large mango with a Brix of 17%. It had some Indian resin notes but it was still bland although I could taste some potential in this one.

The Arka Neelkiran had a Brix of 18.5% and it was slightly tart with some Indian resin notes and this one also showed some potential.

The Carrie was very underripe and we didn’t even bother to take a reading. The Angie had a Brix of 19.5% and tasted good but I’ve had it when it was significantly better.

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #12 on: October 11, 2019, 12:43:44 PM »
Ok, here are the Brix readings. Please excuse the messy writing and the mango juice all over the pages. I’m too lazy to type out all these names and Brix readings. I’d rather spend time discussing the mango varieties that blew our minds yesterday.







Simon

persianmd2orchard

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #13 on: October 11, 2019, 12:56:34 PM »
This is awesome!!! Thanks so much for the informative post, event sounds amazing! Reminded me of a recent fig tasting gathering--50+ awesome varieties with rookies tapping out after the first 7 or so :D :D, a beautiful madness.

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #14 on: October 11, 2019, 01:25:00 PM »
It was great to see everyone again yesterday. This annual mango tasting allows us to catch up on each other’s projects. There were a few new faces this year, most notably, Brad joined the group. Many others couldn’t make it this year but the crowd we had were very enthusiastic about Mangos and other fruits. Unfortunately, we were so busy enjoying the fruits that I forgot to take a group photo.

Before the event started Franks mom made a canistel(Eggfruit) smoothie that was absolutely delicious! I’ve never had Eggfruit before but after sampling this smoothie, I’m glad Brad planted a tree at the orchard. It had a rich taste that was custard in taste with hints of other fruit I can’t put my finger on. It was very tasty and I went back for seconds and thirds.

Ok, now back to my favorites for yesterday. Right behind Venus was Sweet Tart.

Oh yeah, to answer Ollie’s question, the texture of Venus was dense but I wouldn’t say it was creamy. When I think creamy, Butter Cream and Edward are top on my list.

Sweet Tart is a trooper and one of our contributors for this mango tasting harvested over 60 STs from his various trees and grafts. His trees produced a lot last year as well so year to year production from this variety is great so far.


Sweet Tart seems to make it to the top 5 list every year and this combined with its great production and disease resistance is one of the reasons I recommend this variety to all SoCal mango growers. In previous years, the Sweet Tart was the mango with perfect sugar acid balance and it was excellent again this year but the Venus just had more character and depth of flavor. The Venus had extra Indochinese turpene notes that were just more subdued in the Sweet Tart.

My third favorite of the day was ValCarrie. I don’t remember ValCarrie ever tasting so good. It was the most Coconutty mango of the day. The ValCarrie had a Brix of 22% and it was sweet with no acid balance, which I usually don’t like, but in place of acidity, it had excellent Coconut flavor.

Sometimes when people mention that a mango has Coconut flavor, it is very mild and you have to use some imagination to taste the coconut. This ValCarrie had a strong, in your face, Coconut. It was the first flavor profile I detected. In other Coconutty Mangos, you sometimes get a hint of coconut on the back end of your mouth but this mango filled my mouth with coconut flavor.



Simon

behlgarden

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #15 on: October 11, 2019, 02:02:58 PM »
Than you for the post Simon. another notable new variety was Kachamitha, from Philippines, it registered 23.5 brix. it has potential in future, note it fruited on a stick.

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #16 on: October 11, 2019, 02:12:47 PM »
Other varieties that impressed me were Miley, Carla, Honey Kiss, Parson and Juicy Peach.

Miley(fake PSM) had a Brix of 20% and had great sugar acid balance. There is some resemblance to sweet Tart in terms of the balance of the sweet and tart components but this mango was probably picked a bit early and I don’t think it reached its full potential.



Carla came in at 21.5% Brix and to my palate, it had a uniquely delicious tropical fruit starburst flavor. When the Carla was first cut open, I thought it was garbage because it had a very pale color and looked to be severely under ripe but upon tasting it, it was definitely good although obviously not in its prime.

After tasting a bunch of Mangos, you just want something that tastes different from all the regular Mangos and this one stood out from the crowd. I didn’t get enough of this mango to determine if I’m going to add it to my collection but it’s definitely on my list to keep track of.



We had a couple different Honey Miss mangos to sample and the first one was extremely bland and somewhat stringy. The second HK had a Brix of 21% and had a great sugar acid balance. It tasted sweet, with slight acidity to balance out the sugars and had a hint of tropical mango flavor. It was good but the extra bit of fiber was noticeable and the flavor profile, although good, was not top tier for me.


We also had several Parson mangos in the tasting. The first sampling had me intrigued because I detected some coconut notes but it was mild. I can taste the potential in this variety and if harvested at the proper stage of maturity, it has potential. The first fruit had a Brix of 18-19. It was sweet but I can tell it was picked a bit early and not in its prime. The third sampling of Parson had a Brix of 22 but I still wanted more from it. I’m eager to taste this variety again in the coming years.






We had two Juicy Peach Mangos to sample and the first one had a Brix of 18%. It’s texture was very smooth and it definitely had a peachy texture and a very light peachy flavor. It was somewhat watered down and didn’t really impress me. The Second Juicy Peach has a Brix of 25% and was Excellent. The flavor profile of this second Juicy Peach was very different than the first and I wonder if it got misslabeled. I detected some Indochinese flavor in it, similar to a ZIll Indochinese.

This mango was very sweet with great sugar acid balance but I didn’t detect any Peach in it. If I didn’t think it was miss labeled, I may rate it even higher. We had a couple Juicy Peaches and I didn’t get a good look at it before the second one was cut open so I couldn’t back track to try to determine what other variety it may be. Whatever it is, it was very very good.





Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #17 on: October 11, 2019, 02:17:01 PM »
Than you for the post Simon. another notable new variety was Kachamitha, from Philippines, it registered 23.5 brix. it has potential in future, note it fruited on a stick.

Thanks Behl, I was going to add that as a favorite too but I couldn’t read my own writing on how to spell it. It was a very small mango with a very sweet flavor. I only got a small piece so I wasn’t able to discern any particular flavor profile.

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #18 on: October 11, 2019, 02:29:18 PM »
Somewhat disappointing were the following Mangos that were either picked too underripe, didn’t ripen properly or simply had a bad year:

PPK- it was good and tasted a bit like lemon Yogurt from Trader Joe’s but it didn’t reach full potential
Cotton Candy- picked under ripe, flavors didn’t come out
Peach Cobbler- picked underripe or didn’t ripen properly
COC/CAC- usually very good, this time very bland
Orange Sherbet- has 21% Brix but didn’t detect any citrus and the shape was shorter, rounder and fatter than when grown in Florida.
Carrie- under ripe
ZIC- under ripe, bland
Piña Colada- tiny, slightly sweet, no Piña, no Colada- usually one of my favorites
Lemon Zest- they all had low Brix this year, my all time favorite mango. I was lucky enough to sample a bunch of LZ grown in SoCal earlier this year and the Brix ranged from 25-28% and they were absolutely delicious but at this tasting, they were very bland.

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #19 on: October 11, 2019, 02:57:14 PM »
Here are more pictures of the Mangos













Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #20 on: October 11, 2019, 02:58:52 PM »
More















Simon

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #21 on: October 11, 2019, 03:00:01 PM »








Simon

shaneatwell

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #22 on: October 11, 2019, 03:43:20 PM »
Very cool! thanks for the info Simon et al
Shane

simon_grow

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #23 on: October 11, 2019, 04:48:25 PM »
While discussing the topic of Annonas breeding with Rudy(creator of El Bumpo) and Mike  Haluza, they suggested that we focus on selecting or creating a fruit with fewer seeds as the main objective. Mike said that the eating quality significantly increases if there are fewer seeds and I’m sure that we can all agree to that.

On the car ride back to San Diego, Leo mentioned that his Leo Cherimoya/Atemoya Hybrid #1 was very well received at one of his tastings and it also has a very low seed count. I remember really liking this fruit a few years back and with the lower seed count compared to the Leo Hybrid #3, It may be a better choice for breeding projects compared to the Leo Hybrid #3. The Leo Hybrid #1 also has smoother and thicker skin so it would ship better.
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=19336.25
The only issue with Leo’s #1 Hybrid is that it can have sclereid cells which can cause graininess near the skin.

Leo doesn’t hand pollinate his trees and his trees set fruit on their own but his fruit come in really late in the season. Next year, around April or May, Brad and I will try hand pollinating our Leo #3 Hybrid trees early in the season to see if the fruit will mature earlier. I may also try to hand pollinate a few of Leo’s Hybrid #1 early in the season to see if they still have the same graininess. I believe I’ve tasted the Leo Hybrid #1 when it wasn’t grainy but I’m not positive.

Simon

sammmy

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Re: 2019 SoCal Mango tasting
« Reply #24 on: October 11, 2019, 04:48:48 PM »
Brix in the 20's?  That sounds disappointing.  Where were all of those SoCal mangoes pushing 40 that were reported before?