How to tell a naturally ripened mango from a carbide one

Every April the same question comes across the counter: "Bhaiya, ye carbide se pakaya hai kya?"

It is a fair question. Here is exactly how we check, and how you can too.

1. Smell the stem, not the skin. A naturally ripened mango smells sweet and resinous right at the shoulder where it was cut from the tree. A force-ripened one smells of almost nothing, or faintly chemical.

2. Look for uneven colour. Nature is never uniform. A tree-ripened Alphonso will have a blush of green somewhere, or a slight patch. A perfectly even, flat yellow across the whole fruit is a warning sign.

3. Press near the stem. Natural ripening starts at the stem and moves down. If the top is soft but the tip is rock hard, that is a good sign. If the whole fruit is uniformly soft, be careful.

We ripen ours in hay, in wooden crates, for five to seven days. It takes longer and we lose a few. That is simply the cost of selling something you can eat without thinking about it.