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Every Indian thinks their mango is the best. Goa is making a case too—through exhibits, tastings

Mirza Ghalib famously asked only two things of a mango: that it be sweet, and that there be plenty of it. Both conditions were met at a heritage tasting at the Museum of Christian Art in Old Goa.

I have lived in Goa for five years, but it wasn’t until last year that I managed to get my hands on a mankurad, the most feted of Goan mangoes. Sure, the cultivar has a GI tag, but its Portuguese name, Malcorado, translates to “poor-coloured”, so how good could it possibly be?

As a North Indian who has lived away from home for well over 15 years, my childhood memories lead my taste buds by the nose. Those memories are drenched in the uncomplicated buttery-honey notes of the safeda and the heady scent and lingering tang of the sindoori. But nothing has, or ever will, come close to my ardour, my reverence, for the langra and the malda – and years of urushiol burns on my mouth have only sweetened the rapture.

However, all those feelings suffered a humbling when they encountered the smooth, caramelly mankurad. The langda will still come back with me from every trip home, but the mankurad has split the loyalty of someone who thought she had taken sides for life.

Something about the fruit instinctively inspires a competitive parochialism among its devotees. It’s a feat that more self-effacing members of summer’s bounty – say, the litchi, kharbuja or phalsa – cannot summon. Every year, Twitter warriors begin their regional variety death matches, while the pacifists get them to acknowledge that no one who gets to eat a mango at all is a loser. One might take inspiration from the bard – Mirza Ghalib – who famously had two non-negotiable conditions for mangoes: “Aam me sirf do khubiyan honi chahiye // ek meethe ho’n aur bohot saare ho’n.” Mangoes should be sweet, and there should be plenty of them.

Both those conditions were satisfied at a recent private event that I had the good fortune to attend. Revati and Charles Victor, who hosted it, had just concluded a heritage mango tasting as part of a three-day event at the Museum of Christian Art in Old Goa, in collaboration with The Goan Kitchen. The Victors have spent over a year researching the Goan mango, a subject they realised had vanishingly few resources devoted to it. In the last few months, they have sourced several of the 105 rare varieties of Goan mangoes from markets, private farms and, occasionally, houses with just a couple of trees. These include varieties such as the Jesuit, Colaco, and Monteiro, some of them named after the families........

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