South Florida is a few thousand mangoes lighter after this weekend’s mango festival.
The taste testing room at the International Mango Festival at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens, a fixture of the festival, went through roughly 7,000 mangos over the two-day event.
Katherine Howard attends every year and spent her time walking back and forth along a long table laden with plates piled high with sweet, yellow-orange slices of mango. She takes a bite from a particularly juicy orange one from Mexico.
“It tastes like a real mango and look likes one with the right color,” said Howard.
At this 25th installment of the festival, the taste testing room offered samples of mango varieties from Haiti, Florida and Mexico.
“I’m a mango lover; my mother said I always had a mango in my face in Lima when I was a little girl,” said Howard.
Her favorite mango variety was Ataulfo from Mexico.
Tasting testers were asked to cast their vote on the best mango in a giant ballot box at the end of the room. The festival will announce the big winner of the taste testing popularity contest this week.