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Alphonso-style: smaller, less fibrous, deeper orange, more aromatic. The mango people compare every other mango to. Score, scoop, eat — or halve and spoon out cold. One ripe baby mango is one breakfast, one dessert, or one of the better small decisions you’ll make this week.
The baby mango is a small, rich-fleshed mango cultivar in the Alphonso/Ataulfo family — the line of cultivars that produced what most chefs and pastry kitchens consider the gold-standard mango. Each fruit weighs around 250–350g, with a deep orange-yellow skin and an even deeper saffron flesh inside.
Flavour and texture are both significantly above the standard table mango. The flesh is creamier, less fibrous, more honey-rich, with a strong floral aroma you can smell across a kitchen. There’s still a stone in the centre, but it’s smaller than the table-mango stone and the flesh-to-stone ratio is dramatically better.
Look for fruit that gives to gentle pressure and smells fragrant from the stem end. Slice along each flat side of the stone, score the flesh into a grid without piercing the skin, then push the skin up to invert the cubes. Eat straight, blend into lassi, or fold into yogurt with cardamom.
