The Complete Handbook of Mangoes

Chapter 1: Understanding Mangoes

A mango is not a generic sweet fruit. It is the fruit of an evergreen tree in the cashew family, Anacardiaceae, and it carries the family's signature trait: a resinous, irritant-laden sap, called urushiol, which is also present in poison ivy and poison oak. This is the first practical fact a buyer or handler must internalize. The sap that bleeds from a mango stem after harvest will cause dermatitis on sensitive skin and will burn the surface of the fruit itself if not handled correctly. That single botanic fact drives the entire early post-harvest process: desapping, washing, and careful handling.

What a mango actually is, botanically

Botanically speaking, the mango is a drupe, or stone fruit, meaning it has a single large seed inside a hard pit (endocarp), surrounded by a fleshy mesocarp (the edible pulp), and a thin exocarp (the skin). When you buy a stone fruit from the supermarket like a peach, you know the pit inside is fuzzy and corrugated. But a mango pit is different. It is flat, fibrous, and often covered in clinging flesh that is difficult to strip off. This fibrous plate, the testa, is a defining feature of the mango and is a primary reason why some mangoes are described as 'fiberless' versus 'fibrous.'

The mango tree itself is large, long-lived, and can grow to forty feet or more. Commercial orchards keep trees pruned to about fifteen or twenty feet for ease of harvest and pest control.