It’s very difficult to pick E4, at least for me.
I don’t know how anyone can tell if it’s mature green or fully ripe unless they pay attention to the hang time or notice that the fruit is not getting any bigger.
At my house, I have to gently Palm the fruit in my hand and if it falls off, it’s tree ripened. In other n SoCal however and our trees are shorter and hang on the tree for a long time before they’re ripe.
Last year, my E4s didn’t really fatten up on the shoulders or the nose end and our fruit hangs on the tree so long that the stem which attaches the fruit to the panicle is often brown but not always, so that’s not a definitive indicator of ripeness.
I’ve eaten many E4s that were picked much too early by accident and the quality was very poor. Some of the fruit were rubbery and pale inside. Others were just not sweet and lacked flavor as you would expect from fruit picked very under ripe.
This underscores the difficulty of picking this variety.
On the other hand, if you get a truely tree ripened or picked at the appropriate stage E4, it is one of the best tasting mangos available.
I very much dislike fiber in my mangoes but this is the one exception I will make.
When E4 is pick about 80-90% of fully tree ripened, I’m just approximating, it is sweet and has a nice balance of pineapple like tartness and sweetness. It is a great mango at this stage of ripeness but lacks the additional sweetness and flavor nuances that would otherwise kick it to the next level.
When E4 is eaten at 100% of optimal ripeness, it is very sweet with just a hint of perfectly balanced pineapple like acidity and the aroma of candied coconut, think coconut life savers or a sweet Pina Colada mixer. You get this aroma up front through your nose and also in the back of your throat as you eat it. You will notice some fiber but most people are still in the afterglow of the foodgasm they just experienced. Most people roll their eyes in disbelief or simply say out loud “oh my god” at this point. That’s how you can tell your E4 was picked at a fully tree ripened stage.
Don’t ever let a rookie eat a properly ripened E4, or any other properly ripened Zill variety for that matter, lest you wish them question life itself.
I thank Mr. Laurence Zill for giving us Gary and Walter whom gave us all these new Zill variety mangos. I truly thank Walter and Gary for their extremely hard work and dedication to bring about these new mango varieties that were selected not for how long they can remain on a display case at the supermarket but for the sublime taste these varieties offer.
Simon
Topic: Picking Sugarloaf (E-4) Mango (Read 1490 times)