Maybe because Mango is a seasonal fruit, and it’s cold nowadays.
I used to think seasonality in Taiwan was inconvenient and behind-the-times. Now I appreciate that seasonal plants means that most stuff is grown locally. Supermarkets in the US are the weird ones flying in mangoes from arouns the world in the dead of winter to a place where mangoes would never even grow naturally!
Most of those fruits like mangoes, pineapples, and anything else that shows up in impossibly unnatural places taste like absolute crap after their preserved journey around the world. I will happily wait til summer.
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Have you been to the supermarket? They have fruits from all over the world.
Right now bringing in eggs from America to meet the shortage of two to three hundred thousand.
Taiwan eggs continuously seem to fail contamination standards.
And lots of produce growing in Taiwan is growing in farm areas infested with illegal factories dispensing contaminants into the ground and water supply.
Me rikey them big fat yellow buttery ones. 
Taiwan is generally way better for eating local and in season, which is clearly a much more responsible and economically constructive path to follow than the alternatives.
One would hate to be one of those bozos who think it’s 1980 and it’s cool they got Dryer’s at Wellcome…
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I remember two or three summers ago a badly timed typhoon ruined a large chunk of our mango production in the south. Prices that year were brutal, and availability prett low.
Last year was great, though. I like all kinds of mangos (mangoes? mangooses?), but the yellow ones that can be the size of a baby watermelon are so satisfying to eat.
The slightly red ones are still ok, but not as memorable.
As has been mentioned, mango is a summertime fruit. Kindly do not wish an early summer upon us. Might I interest you in some jujubes or strawberries in the meantime?
End of strawberry season is RIGHT now . Strawberries should be going cheap get em when their good.
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Here is a nice reference:
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Nice!
So only one mango, Irwin mango 愛文芒果 in May, June, July?
There are lots of other varieties. Some (like my beloved small green guys, tu mango), typically arrive earlier in the summer. When those disappear, my heart breaks…
Guy
Those are my favorites too. A lot of flavor in a small package. The Irwins are sweet, but no fragrance and tang.
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The smaller kinds also have a bouncier, chewier texture. Yum yum!
There are dozens of varieties of mangoes as there are dozens of varieties of strawberries, apples, pears …
Some. Not nearly as many as in the US, where almost everything is shipped across the country if not around the world.
The small ones like mentioned above, tu man guo, are surely better tasting when ripe. These are the green raw ones used for sour preps sort of like a green papaya in appearance.
I lived in the main area of production of these for a long time and can say with absolute fact they are pretty heavily sprayed. Ive been warned by scooters passing by not to touch the leaves and to have a shower after rubbing them…farmers also warn. Its one crop i wont get into for fruit production. The large yellow ones mentioned are called Jin Huang. Poor taste but nice texture, no fibre and big size. They are famously picked early and artificially ripened. Not a huge problem, just an fyi and why they taste so bland…
Taiwan has a lot of seasonal fruit also as mentioned above. It also has some advanced fruit research. This doesnt really relate to health care research unfortunately. But long story short, many seasonal crops are now being grown year round here. Some are simple photoperiod tricks, others are pruning, hormone, defoliation, root pruning (bleach) etc.
Things like dragon fruit are easy to grow year round with lighting organically. For some insane reason many farmers still spray.
While other crops i wont touch due to chemical related issues: custard apple/atemoya, wax apple**, papaya, mango. Some fruit is sprayed but not so scary. I will never foeget a meeting years ago when the PABP opened and i was talking to the head of the pest control department. I mentioned we wanted to start an organic wax apple operation in the area and he burst out laughing. And he is himself an organic farmer. Point taken.
Some nee fruit for taiwan which is maturing finally are cacao, rambutan, durian, abiu, tree grape. Others like mangosteen, mexican mangosteen, fiji longan, langsat amongst others are all growing but will be a few years before people can actually buy them. There are a lot of us plant collectors in taiwan. Some are some.pretty interesting folks who are really down to earth.
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They got Dreyer’s at Wellcome???
We should have an agriculture-related rant-off. Farming is a catastrophe virtually everywhere.
Personally, I blame the economists (just generally, I mean … you can make almost any problem worse simply by hiring an economist to fix it).
Why on earth would anyone spray papaya? You plant them and they grow and make lots of papaya. Sure they get diseases and die eventually, but so what? You just plant another one. Only pest problem I’ve noticed is the occasional ripe one pecked to pieces by birds.
You seem to know lots about mangoes, so quick question: I’ve heard mango trees are very tolerant of flooding and will even grow in standing water. Is this true? I have a boggy patch in which I’d like to install some biological pumps (aka trees) but the list of candidates is quite short. Not too bothered about getting edible mangoes … although another question occurs to me: can pigs eat mangoes, or are they toxic?
Actually mangoes are difficult to grow. I had three mango trees many years ago, none of them grew fruit.
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We should have an agriculture-related rant-off. Farming is a catastrophe virtually everywhere[/quote]
I would love a forum to talk plants. Like the animal forum. Or broaden that one to biology.
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Why on earth would anyone spray papaya? You plant them and they grow and make lots of papaya[/quote]
Quick answer: flies and aphids. Its the same reason papaya are gmo now.
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You seem to know lots about mangoes, so quick question: I’ve heard mango trees are very tolerant of flooding and will even grow in standing water. Is this true? I have a boggy patch in which I’d like to install some biological pumps (aka trees) but the list of candidates is quite short[/quote]
They might grow depends on your areea. They generally like very well drained soil that dont become swampy. They can handle huge rains for sure, but it needs to run off eventually. Staying wet for a month etc is usually fine. Living in a swamp isnt.
Better wet area plant cadidates: durian, snakeskin fruit, guava, banana, fig amongst others.
Not sure hpw toxic they are to pigs. The plant and skin is a mild alergen to people, the white sap, so its quite possibly not ok for them but not sure. The spray on them wiuld certainly be bad.
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tually mangoes are difficult to grow. I had three mango trees many years ago, none of them grew fruit.[/quote]
Growing the trees are easy. Getting the fruit to set is the problem. Its the biggest reason they spray. Followed by fruit flies.
It’s happening with strawberries too!
President Chain Store Corp’s (統一超商) 7-Eleven and Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) each sell about 40 products claiming to contain strawberries.
However, none of the products sold at 7-Eleven stores and only two at Taiwan FamilyMart stores actually contained strawberries, while of the 18 strawberry food products sold at Pxmart (全聯實業), only half contained the fruit