Mangoes, as good as gold

Imagine a customer offering `17,000 –four times the amount quoted by the seller – for 1kg of mangoes. But that’s how much the Miyazaki variety is worth in India, and such is the craze that people are ready to pay more than they should.

Sathish Ramasamy, a Miyazaki mango vendor based in Salem, recalls, “One of my customers travelled all the way from Bengaluru to Salem to buy 1kg of Miyazaki mangoes from me. I told him the price is `3,000 per kg, but he forcefully paid me `17,000 because he felt it was worth that much. Aside from the taste of the mango, it’s also about showing that one can afford the luxury of buying one,” says Sathish.

Originally cultivated in Kyushu, Japan, a Japanese-grade Miyazaki mango must weigh more than 350 grams to qualify as one, and possess sugar content of at least 15%. It should be perfect in shape and colour, and it’s no wonder the variety is called ‘Taiyo no Tamago’ in Japanese, which means ‘egg of the sun’.

The Miyazaki gained attention through social media only recently, but quickly became popular among mango lovers who are ready to go the extra mile to get a taste of this exotic variant for its sweetness, lack of fibre and higher beta-carotene content.

However, what makes it even more special and opulent is its cost. In the international market, this variety is sold at `2.3 lakh to `3 lakh per kg as it is harvested directly from the mother plant (a plant grown for cutting offsets to produce more plants).

Sureshkumar, a pharmacist, had always been fascinated with gardening. As a child, he and his brother would grow fruits and vegetables on their terrace. But the latest and most expensive addition to his farmhouse garden is the Miyazaki mango.

“While casually reading up on mango varieties, I happened to notice that Miyazaki mangoes are one of the most expensive. It got me curious, and my hunt for a sapling began,” says Suresh, who finally bought a medium-sized sapling for `1,300.

It was a casual tasting session which led Sriram V, a Chennai-based IT professional, to buy a sapling. “I follow a YouTube channel named Greenland Nursery. Last year, I decided to stop by at the nursery; that is when the owner, Krishnan, offered me a piece of the Miyazaki mango to try. The fruit was sweet, juicy and fibre-free. I knew it was a special variety and decided to buy a small sapling for `950,” he says. Sriram has been waiting for a year for it to bear fruit and is on the lookout for Miyazaki vendors in Chennai to get a taste of the mango again.

P Krishnan, who owns Greenland Nursery in Guduvancherry, says it sold more than 400 Miyazaki saplings this year to customers all over India. The prices of the saplings range from `950 to `4,000.

The mother plants are available only in Japan and Thailand and their offsets are grown in West Bengal and Kashmir and later brought to nurseries across India, he says. These offsets are suitable for Indian climate and can be grown with great ease. Within 8–9 months, the

saplings start to flower. “A more

flavourful and sweeter version of Sindhoora” is how Krishnan describes the taste.

Miyazaki vendors say people are going to great lengths for the fruit but due to the lack of sufficient rains during the harvest season, the production of the mangoes was low this year. “This has increased the sales of saplings as people want to grow the variety at home,” says Krishnan.