So….. This last Tuesday, July 23rd, I sponsored the first annual Desert Mango Tasting event at my place in Palm Springs, CA. In attendance were JF, Behl, Null Zero and his girlfriend, Christina. We had 10 mango varieties to slice up and eat (though 11 were present on the table):
Rosigold
Manila (from my neighbor’s tree)
Duncan (grown in Florida)
Edward (grown in Florida)
Pina Colada
Glenn
Maha Chinok
Nam Doc Mai
Valencia Pride (Improperly labeled tree?)
NDM/Mystery mango (Improperly labeled?)
Kent(one was partially ripe)
Keitt (none ripened in time)
It was 100 degrees outside, but we all sat in my mister-wrapped gazebo and were quite comfortable as we sat down with our drinks and pretzels, readying for the competition! Nullzie took the photos of each mango variety as we cut them open.
We judged the mangoes using a 0(low/bad) – 5 (high/good) rating system. The 5 categories examined were: Fiber, Shape/color (appearance), Taste, Flesh-to-Seed ratio and Texture. We had a 6th category, Aroma, that was used for a number of the mangoes, but then we kind of decided to throw that category out as it just didn’t seem so important, though Behl had the best nose and was raving about certain varieties – he probably having the longest mango history among all of us having grown up with them as a kid.
Anyway, the final tallies of the tasting are as follows, remembering that these in no way are representative of these varieties grown elsewhere in our state (or around the country for that matter) as I am still learning, changing and adding, major and minor elements, compost, various fertilizers, water, etc. to my trees that I would think do have some bearing on taste:
Overall Ratings based on the 5 categories (Forgot to add up the totals for the Kent, which was only partially ripe, and the neighbors’ Manila were just plain bad!):
Rosigold
Maha Chinok
Glenn
Pina Colada
Valencia Pride (?)
Edward
Nam Doc Mai
Duncan
Mystery Mango (from a NDM labeled tree but not even close to the proper shape)
And then we did a cumulative rating based on Taste only, as we began to feel that if it didn’t have good flavor, then the other categories really held less meaning. We kind of agreed that next time, we’d weight the “Taste” category on a 0 – 10 basis, thus doubling its influence on our rating system. The results based just on Taste were:
Edward
Rosie and Glenn (tied)
Pina Colada
Valencia Pride (?)
Maha Chinok
Nam Doc Mai
Duncan and Mystery Mango (tree labeled NDM)
(Kent and Manila not included)
Christina and I seemed to enjoy the sweeter varieties placing secondary importance on various complexities, where JF, Behl and Null Zero appeared to like more of the “in your face” type mangoes with sweetness probably farther down their list of preference. For example, what we called the “fake” Valencia Pride (so-called because of it’s small size and high fiber content) was really enjoyed by those 3 as it had a bit of a kick to it, and Christina and I turned our noses up a bit as we “munched” (J) on our pieces of fruit. The "Mystery" mango looked, and tasted perhaps, somewhat like my Manilas on my tree (fattish and oval) but the tree was purchased and labeled as a Nam Doc Mai. The Nam Doc Mai tested was true to shape but a bit overripe. The Florida Edward was a hit overall (even with the signature Florida anthracnose spots on it) while the Florida Duncan must have absorbed all the recent rains there as it was completly watered down and bland. The Glenn had a large bad spot on it, but still soared and scored well with the tasters. 80% of the mangoes tested were picked off my trees with just a bit of color on them, still hard, and ripened by wrapping them in newspaper, placed in a box and put in a warm place a week before the contest. Maybe with more tree-ripening before picking the tastes for some of them might have changed.
One of the biggest surprises was the beautiful Maha Chinok fruit, which really failed to live up to the overall hype it has gotten here at the forum, really turning in to a run of the mill variety during the contest. Frank had sampled a Florida Maha two days before the tasting and testified that it's a superior variety for sure. He thinks I will figure out all the soil additives, and I will see it respond better to the taste test in the future. I still have some thought that, perhaps it simply doesn’t do well out here in the desert. Guess we’ll see.
So a big thanks for my SoCal friends for coming out and enjoying a few hours of laughter and slurping mangoes with me. We’ll definitely do it again next year and the year after as long as the mangoes keep saying, EAT ME!
Gary (MangoFang)
(Apparently, in our excitement, we only photographed 5 mangoes! Also, Nullzie, if you could post a picture of the participants since that was not in the link you sent me)
Mango Array
Rosigold
Florida Edward
Glenn
Florida Duncan
Maha Chinok
