Self Evident Presents: "Underground Aams Trade, Pt 1" (by See Something Say Something)

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INTRO

CATHY: Hi, it’s Cathy! And this is Self Evident. 

CATHY: Today we’re sharing a story from one of our favorite podcasts, See Something Say Something, by Ahmed Ali Akbar, a show that covers everything American Muslims are talking about right now.

CATHY: Ahmed originally did this story for the podcast Proof, from America’s Test Kitchen. It’s called Underground Aams [ahmms] Trade, and let’s just say… if you liked our episode about fruit from earlier this year, this story is right up your alley.

CATHY: In fact, Ahmed was one of the voices in that episode, reminiscing about how his mom would sit at the head of the table after dinner and cut up fruit for everyone, and serve it with chaat masala. And as you might have guessed, for Ahmed, there’s one fruit to rule them all:

Ahmed: We’re, yep, about to show up at a random guy’s house to pick up mangoes...Also, his name is, as a mango middleman is “The Aams Dealer,” and “Aams” means “mango...”

CATHY: This is part one of Ahmed’s story about his quest to find Pakistani mangoes in the U.S. You can hear part two on his podcast, See Something Say Something.

CATHY: And just like Self Evident, See Something Say Something is an independent podcast, relying on listener support. So we’re linking to a Patreon where you can support Ahmed’s work.

CATHY: All of that’s in the show notes. And you can see our special trip with Ahmed, to taste the first mangos of the season, on our instagram — at self evident show.

CATHY: Ok! Here’s Underground Aams Trade, part one.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: It's nearly midnight, and I'm on my way to the drop site in a borrowed American made hatchback. The back row of seats are pushed down to make room for the product. The order had been placed by my cousin, who knew a guy who knew a guy, and the guy was very particular about the drop-off point. I stepped into the sterile metallic cargo bay and a sleepy looking attendant asks for my bill.

I opened a page of WhatsApp, then pass him my phone. He doesn't ask me any questions. Clearly he's facilitated many of these pickups before. He asked me to pull the car around. I pull around to the loading dock and stand outside my car as the massive door lifts slowly. A dolly rolls out with nearly 15 boxes each worth their weight in gold.

I have no idea if what I'm doing is illegal, but it feels kind of wrong. It feels sinful. At the very least black market underground. You might be wondering what I'm buying. I've driven two hours out of my way to pick up these boxes. They're expensive, and the business is conducted over a secure messaging app.

It's gotta be drugs, right? Oh yeah, baby. It's a drug alright. It's a shipment of some of the best mangoes in the world.

Bridget Lancaster:  Today, Ahmed Ali Akbar brings us the story of Pakistani mangoes and the community that's fighting to make them available in the United States. From America's Test Kitchen, I'm Bridget Lancaster. And this is Proof. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So it was a little over a year ago that I drove to the Detroit airport to pick up the goods: pakistani mangoes, that is. 

Bridget Lancaster: This is Ahmed Ali Akbar. He's a writer, journalist and host of the incredible See Something, Say Something podcast that explores American Muslim experiences. For over a year, he's been on a quest to understand the trade of Pakistani mangoes in the United States.

It all started last year with that shipment of mangoes that he retrieved from the Detroit airport. It was the first time he had eaten Pakistani mangoes on US soil. And for many Pakistani Americans, this is a common story because it's incredibly hard to find their home country's most famous fruit in the states.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: The pickup was successful. I had completed my first deal.

Bridget Lancaster: Ahmed, not to interrupt your whole, um, mango noir thing you've got going on, but what's the deal with these special mangoes anyway? 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Well, uh, those particular varieties I picked up are two of the most famous and coveted varietals that you'll find in Pakistan. They're a little smaller, a little more delicate and less fibrous than we get here. Plus a whole lot sweeter. You probably eat your mangoes by cubing them or slicing them. 

Bridget Lancaster: Right. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Well, some of these Pakistani varieties when ripe, they're so delicate, you just have to rotate them and gently massage them by hand around the entire surface area. And then you can just pull the stem off and it's completely liquid inside. So you just suck up all the juices and all that's left is the oval fuzzy seed at the center of every mango. It's not an exaggeration to say that they're the best mangoes I've ever had. They've got an incredible aroma and richness that you can only really understand when you finally have them.

Bridget Lancaster: So how in the world did you find yourself in Detroit, in an airport cargo pickup with, say, 15 boxes in your truck? 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So, Bridget, at that point, I wasn't really covering the story as a journalist. I just really loved mangoes and I was excited to try them. My cousin had some connect that led me to the airport.

You know, I went and picked it up for him, but make no mistake, actually tracing the distribution of these bad boys, it's not easy. After that, I've been on a journey to just figure out where these mangoes are coming from and why it's so underground. 

Bridget Lancaster: The box of mangoes that Ahmed picked up had packing stickers on it that indicated the box had traveled from Karachi, Pakistan through Houston, Texas, and it had another sticker that said Texas A and M AgriLife. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: The only other clue I had was the poster advertising their sale. Mango Mania. It lists the weeks that mangoes are available for purchase May through August 2019.

It lists a website that directs to a fruit market in Texas and at the bottom, a WhatsApp phone number with instructions to text only. And that's what really peaked my interest. I thought, "Why are people buying this incredibly rare commodity through WhatsApp?" For a fruit, with such massive appeal in our community, it feels super informal. And I had so many questions. Why didn't more people know about it? And how big was this WhatsApp market? I kept an audio diary on my iPhone throughout the last year of reporting on this unusual mango trade. And it became clear early on that it would be pretty difficult to get people to talk to me.

They're all basically either ignoring my emails or, you know, they're responding up until I want to interview them. And then they ghost me, which is pretty frustrating. I initiated contact with different people, with a role in the supply chain. And as soon as I revealed that I was a reporter, I wouldn't hear back.

This happened many times over the course of this story. What I would eventually learn about Pakistani mangoes and their distribution in the United States is so complex that, and I can't believe I'm saying this, it's going to take two episodes to get to the bottom of it. But let's start at the beginning.

Dr. Saroch Amvar: So I came to the U S in December, 1990. And for almost 15 years, the only time I could have Pakistani mangoes were either if once every other year I would visit Pakistan. Or if I were to go to Toronto.

Ahmed Ali Akbar:  That's my cousin, or as you might know him, the surprisingly sweet orchestrator of my shady feeling Detroit airport mango pick up from the beginning of the story.

He's a cardiologist with a gentle spiritual disposition. Actually he's my mom's cousin's son, but because of the nature of Pakistani relationships, we're really close. He moved to our little hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, just to be closer to my mother. We call him Rochi Bhai, Bhai meaning brother. He's in his fifties, but he's an early adopter of the internet and has always been on top of finding new technology.

In a family that loves food, he might be the one who loves food the most. He shares it joyfully and it costs.

Dr. Saroch Amvar:  I think maybe about 2000 to 2,500. So two 800 900 was when I was having a party and I wanted my friends to share this delicacy also. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: WhatsApp wasn't his first way of getting the mangoes first. He would actually drive to Canada for them. To belabor that point, he drove to a different country. He crossed the border. Just to eat mangoes. And then he found this website where he could order them online. 

Dr. Saroch Amvar: And I found there was this company called mangozz.com. That was their web address, which had started importing mangoes from India and then eventually Pakistan.

And they would send it via two day FedEx or priority mail delivery to your home, but exceedingly expensive, uh, maybe $10 a mango so $80 for a box of eight mangoes. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: They're really expensive to buy this way. And oftentimes they're not in great shape by the time they arrive. So paying an even higher premium on potentially overripe mangoes, isn't an ideal purchasing option.

So he stuck to mangozz and Canadian road trips for a time. But then a friend in our hometown in Michigan told him he could get them on WhatsApp. 

Dr. Saroch Amvar: It's a very simple process. Through the season of mangoes, which runs for about three months, once a week he puts it on WhatsApp as to next week, on what day, what particular breed or kind of mango, uh, is expected.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So Rochi Bhai has developed a kind of relationship with this gentleman who sells the mangoes over text. 

Dr. Saroch Amvar: So when he texts me to order, I just text him back, and he charges my credit card, which is on file with him. And then he texts me that this is the airway bill number when the mangoes are ready to ship. And either I, or one of my friends, or there's a gentleman who sometimes drives for me, go to Detroit and pick them up. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: He says, despite the two hours to the Detroit airport and two hours back, it's still cheaper and a better use of his time than just ordering a shipment to his house. And he shows no signs of slowing down his mango purchasing.

Dr. Saroch Amvar: Oh yeah. The mango milkshake, of course. And I actually froze some of the mangoes, cut them up and froze them, so I can still make mango milkshake and you take ice sugar milk and the mango and blend them together. And it's incredibly delicious. Also a lot of calories.

Ahmed Ali Akbar:  Of course, I had to know who was his supplier. Turns out my cousin gets his mangoes from a man named Amaar Bhaveja who lives in Texas.

Another one of my cousins in Jersey also buys from Mr. Bhaveja off WhatsApp. When people in her community find out she's ordering, they want in. So she buys in bulk and distributes them to our community in Jersey for no profit. When I spoke to her about the story, she said she distributed around $10,000 worth of mangoes in one season.

So I reached out to Mr. Bhaveja, I sent him a message on WhatsApp and said, I wanted to buy some mangoes and speak to him for a piece. He said, sure, we scheduled a time, but it didn't work until finally he said he didn't want to do the interview. And for almost a year, I wouldn't be able to get him on the phone.

Next, I decided to reach out to the source. The sticker on the mangoes I picked up at the Detroit airport said, Farm Fresh. Turns out this is a farm in Karachi Pakistan. Their website offers ordering in bulk quantities to be delivered to Southwest airlines' cargo pickups, the terms and agreement sections of the website is an exercise in redundancy, saying we are not responsible for the conditions of the mangoes in about 40 different ways.

After some back and forth, they eventually declined to be interviewed for this piece. But before we go too far, let's talk a little about mangoes. The scientific name of the mango is Mangifera Indica. It's related to some other plants which may surprise you like cashew trees and poison sumac. Mangoes are native to the Indian sub-continent, which includes India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

They're generally a hot weather fruit. They'll really suffer if exposed to any frost or freezing temperatures. India also claimed some pretty delicious varietals. India's Alfonzo mangoes are often considered the best in the world, but Pakistanis, like to contend that they're Chaunsa and  Anwar Ratol are up there as well.

Bridget Lancaster:  In the Northern part of the Western hemisphere, we have a few different varieties. Some of the most popular in America include Kent, Tommy Atkins and honey. The mango season in America is also quite long. Some varietals are available most of the year. And while we occasionally get mangoes from Florida, the Caribbean or South America, the majority of mangoes found in a typical American supermarket are from Mexico.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Mexican mangoes are great because as my colleague Miles Carp says, any mango is a good mango, but seriously, the Pakistani varieties I ate while reporting the story are on a whole other level. If a Mexican mango is like a spunky jazz quartet that you patronize at a bar, Chaunsa and Anwar Ratol are like a full on Beyonce concert, they are obsession worthy, bridgette.

Bridget Lancaster:  Mango formation. Well in Pakistan comparatively, I guess mango season is pretty short. It lasts from May until late August, but you have varieties like Chansa and Anwar Ratol that, they're only available for a few weeks and they're super delicate. So you've got a super short shelf life. So needless to say that any kind of transport of these delicate jewels of produce about 8,000 miles in a short amount of time is going to put some serious strain on that supply chain.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: My late mother was a big mango fan, but mangoes were pretty rare when my mom and dad first came to the U S in the 70s. By the time I was old enough to appreciate fruit, around the late nineties, we were finally starting to get more Mexican mangoes in the Midwest market. I remember her bringing them home after work and saying kind of to no one, "let's see how these ones hold up." Those Mexican mangoes felt like a really special treat to me, but I also didn't have any point of comparison because I spent my entire childhood in Michigan. The only mangoes I knew where those honking red and green ones with all the fiber. And don't get me wrong. I think they're delicious.

I like my mangoes, a little sour. Those are really good sour, but my mom never thought they were as good as the Pakistani ones. She did, however, I think they were getting better over time. I never really knew what that meant. For the first two thirds of my life, I never even touched a Pakistani mango. I've only encountered them in the last five years.

And I could probably count the instances on two hands. There were literally revered in our house and I barely ever got a chance to try them. After I began working on this story, my cousin bought an absolutely massive shipment off WhatsApp for his brother's birthday and we had a mango party. It was wild. Just mango carcasses littered everywhere at this party, I probably ate six to 12 mango.

Here's the thing. They cost $8 a mango. The volume of fruit that I ate could be like the cost of a mid range dinner at a happening spot Manhattan. 

So I'm visiting Pakistan and it's August. 

I visit Pakistan pretty often, but almost always in December when mangoes are a distant memory, but not this time. On a hot day in August, I sat on my uncle's porch tasting Pakistani mangoes.

In Pakistan in mango season for the various first time. 

So I've got a bowl of cut up mangoes in front of me. Um, and I'm going to try them for the first time and see if what they say is true. 

It was towards the tail end of the season. So they were a bit more sweet than I usually like, but they were a revelation.

Whoa. Oh my God. It's like honey. Super, super duper sweet. And, but it's like coming at me from all sorts of angles. 

It's definitely like eating candy. It feels like candy. It does not feel like a fruit. 

Wow. Yeah. This is definitely like popping pieces of candy in your mouth. 

So in that moment, I fully understood why pretty much every Pakistani immigrant longs for mangoes from back home.

Have you ever eaten Pakistani manga? 

Zainab Shah: Oh, many times, many times. One of the earliest flavors. I remember tasting is a Pakistani mango. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: This is Zainab Shah. She's a food writer from Lahore. For the past eight years or so. She's called New York home. She works at a startup now, and I went to her office to get some more cultural contexts on fruit and mangoes and Pakistani culture.

Have you been able to acquire them in the United States since moving here? 

Zainab Shah: I have not. I came here and one time I remember, I think I was in a Thai restaurant and I asked for a mango salad and the mangoes were not mangoes in that salad. They were like these really hard tart. It was fruit for sure, but it wasn't what I was expecting. And it was kind of like a rude awakening for me, where I was like, wait, this is not a mango. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: This is kind of stunning, right? She posts up these amazing elaborate food stories on her Instagram. I've seen her roast a whole leg of lamb. Like it's no big deal. She says the Pakistani mango is her first flavor.

And just to drive home the point about scarcity, she hasn't had a single one in the U S. Zainab does embody a certain Pakistani attitude of generosity with food that was echoed in all of my sources throughout the story. 

Can you tell me what you've done right before we started this interview? 

Zainab Shah: I made you a cup of chai.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: I didn't ask her to make a cup of tea, by the way, it just appeared in front of me. When we sat down to talk. 

Why did you make me a cup of chai?

Zainab Shah:  Because it's just, it's just being hospitable. You know, it's like, uh, you came to my space and I wanted to be hospitable and I wanted to welcome you. And the way we do that is like by making each other chai.

Ahmed Ali Akbar:  At my house, growing up, my sisters and I were expected to make tea and prepare a tray of biscuits and snacks for any guests and while tea is offered to people outside the home, one of the ways of showing love to your family is to cut fruit for them. Usually between meals. 

Zainab Shah: It's abundance, fruit is abundance. If you have fruit in your house, Like you have fruit at breakfast, you have fruit as a dessert. Your meal is not complete unless you've had fruit, even shopping for fruit is a big thing on Sundays. I know you go to the Mandi I guess it's what people here call the farmer's market. Like we just like have that without being precious about it. So yeah, it's just a big part of the way that we eat.

Maybe it has to do with Punjab being a very hot province and fruits, having more of like, uh, um, hydration, calming, cooling, element, especially after like a big meal of spicy food. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: And in the context of a fruit centered society, mango reigns supreme in Urdu and Hindi, and probably some other north Indian languages, we call mangoes aam. And the website of one farm in Pakistan, there's this absolutely hilarious drop down menu on top. It says fruit, vegetable, and mango, as if mango is entirely its own category. 

Zainab Shah: So we would sit outside and there would be one bucket full of ice and mangoes in it. And then there would be another bucket on the other side, which you would throw the pits and the peals in. You would pull out, like, you put your hand into the ice that was melting into cold water and these mangoes, which literally felt like they'd come out of the freezer, you'd like soften it. And it would be like mushy, gooey, really sweet. The perfect mango that's not too ripe, it's like not too sweet, not too sour. And you would eat it, it would be like juice and mush and it would be all over your fingers and your hands and your arms and your face. 

Bridget Lancaster: Well, Ahmed the way that you're talking about these mangoes, it all seems a little romantic. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: It sort of is, but I also want to caution again. There's a very large literary critique of the mango as a symbol for south Asianess people often joke that every single postcolonial novel about South Asia features a mango. But if you go back to pre-independence, there's tons of flowery versus dedicated to the fruit. A lot of people like to talk about Mirza Taleb's poetry, extolling the fruit, but honestly, my favorite one comes from Amir Khusau, who is a 13th, 14th century poet. May I read you a piece, Bridget? 

Bridget Lancaster: I am definitely not gonna stop you.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So it's translated from Persian, uh, which is a language I don't speak, but it's in a common format for this genre of poetry, which is kind of like a call and response. It's called, "He visits my town once a year." Here it is. 

He visits my town once a year. He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar. I spent all my money on him.

And then here's the call: ooh girl, your man? The response: no a mango. It's just amazing. Right? It's amazing. Bridget. It makes me laugh so much. 

Bridget Lancaster: I have to turn the air up in here.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Yeah, it shows like almost this like, love lust that the sub-continent has with a mango. And by the way, just as a side note, Ariana Grande pinned that poem on her Twitter at one point this year. It's just like the best crossover ever. Pakistanis are mango obsessed. So they're constantly looking for ways around the scarcity.

Of course, they're trying to grow these Pakistani varietals state side. My friends Zutara's dad is one of these people. He even FedExd me a box of 12 mangoes recently before I had even ever spoken with him. They were the Glen variety, which originated in south Florida. I forgot to thank him. So I decided to call him up for this story.

Mohammad Baig: It's about, I would say 16 feet tall and about 12 to 15 feet wide. It has four big trunks from the base. One trunk, then it has four big trunks. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Mohammad Baig does quality control and pharmaceutical manufacturing during the day. But every summer, his mango trees at his Fort Lauderdale home give him hundreds of mangoes.

He's incredibly generous with them as I found out. This is a pretty common story. Amongst box tiny people who grow mangoes. There's a desire to share their mangoes with the entire world. I had never had Glenn mangoes before. And I got to say, Mohammad uncle's mangoes were very delicious, but they're not exactly the Pakistani varieties I'm looking for. He hasn't had luck fruiting a Pakistani variety yet, but he is trying. He told me that there's a guy down there in Florida who is selling mango trees to the local Florida Pakistani community. And he claims the seeds are of Pakistani origin. 

Mohammad Baig: They were buying these trees and growing them in their backyard and they were complaining that it still doesn't taste as good as the one in Pakistan.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So the question becomes, can a Pakistani mango tree grow in the United States? Well, the answer is sorta. Like it may give fruit one year and then it may not another year. And they're also vulnerable to local fly and fungus infestations. And then after all that, even if they bloom it may not taste very good, hardly a good basis for a cash crop. The man who sold Mohammed uncle his trees has an idea of why the mangoes didn't take. 

Mohammad Baig: So he told them that, uh, there is also a difference in soil. Pakistan soil is different. The climate is different. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Agriculture is hard. Soil is finicky and environments vary and apparently American land is so different from Pakistani land that it makes the mangoes themselves different.

It's kind of romantic, isn't it? Only the Homeland can grow them. Mohammed Uncle does have two baby Pakistani mango trees in his backyard. 

Mohammad Baig: This is Anwar Ratol it does have the same three or four branches. And, um, I have tied them to keep them straight. And, um, when I get a chance, I'll take a picture of them and I'll send you one.

Ahmed Ali Akbar: They haven't fully bloomed yet to give fruit, but we're all waiting with bated breath. Maybe I'll even get some of those in my mailbox one day. I did end up thanking him by the way. 

Mohammad Baig: No, you're welcome. And then next year, hopefully we're going to have a full tree and I'll send you more. 

Bridget Lancaster: After the break, Ahmed's gumshoe investigation continues and he gets closer to uncovering the WhatsApp Pakistani mango trade.

Before the break, Ahmed stumbled upon a mysterious mango trade that was operating on the messaging platform, WhatsApp. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So there's this term that pops up a lot in poli-sci circles: mango diplomacy. It's where the leaders in Pakistan and India will send each other boxes of mangoes as a way to cool things down after an event in Kashmir or a nuclear test.

It doesn't really work. It's a bit of a humblebrag also, which doesn't seem very diplomatic to me. Our mangoes are better than your mangoes. 

Bridget Lancaster: These Pakistani mangoes, along with Indian mangoes were banned as an import to the United States until the late Bush and early Obama administrations. And it turns out the recent Pakistani mangoes were ultimately approved for import in the United States was due to some mango diplomacy by then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Pakistan had historically exported things like rice and textiles and dried food products into the U S but much less fresh agriculture, which is a major industry in Pakistan. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: So in the Obama era, Clinton was looking for a win to improve trade relations during a visit to Islam about the secretary of state. She said, 'I have personally vouched for box on the mangoes, which are delicious, and I'm looking forward to seeing Americans be able to enjoy those in the coming months.' So why are they still so hard to get? I decided to change my approach and focus on what. Why do Pakistani mango sellers conduct their business on this app anyway? 

Zainab Shah: I feel like WhatsApp is a lifeline. I'm connected. I'm in a group chat where one of my friends is in Vienna, the other one's in Atlanta. And it's me, I'm in a cousins group chat where I have cousins in the Netherlands, in the UK, in Pakistan. We're all on the same channel. I have a group chat with like my uncles and aunties. It's like 2,500 people in that group chat. We exchange recipes on WhatsApp. We find ways to stay connected. If there's nothing else to talk about, we talk about what we ate.

Ahmed Ali Akbar:  In the Pakistani community, our networks are really large, tight knit and completely global. WhatsApp is a secure messaging platform that was released in 2009.

And it completely dominates communication in countries like India, Pakistan, Brazil and more. Growing up, I always received massive email forwards and chains from my family in Pakistan, but in the past decade, WhatsApp has completely replaced that. I'm in seven different WhatsApp groups with my cousins. So the platform really transformed the way these tight-knit communities speak with one another.

It's allowed ease and speed of contact for many people in different time zones. With different phone providers. The email forwards were replaced by memes in WhatsApp. For me though, WhatsApp is an on again, off again, thing that I use when I feel like connecting it isn't my primary way of communicating like it is for my family abroad.

And that might be why, I didn't know, Pakistani mangoes were available in the U S for so long. And even after I uncovered this unusual supply chain, it never occurred to me that Pakistani mangoes could be procured in any other way. But turns out, I was wrong. 

The store is located off of Coney island Avenue and Foster Ave.

Um, on your way up, you see Bangladeshi groceries, you see, you know, sort of bungalow font or Arabic. 

At this point in my reporting, I couldn't get anybody involved in the distribution of Pakistani mangoes on WhatsApp to talk to me on the record. So I went to Coney island avenue. Most people familiar with south Asian communities in New York city of Jackson Heights and Queens or Murray hill or Curry hill and Manhattan as locations where there are a lot of desis.

Desis, by the way, referring to anyone from the Indian sub-continent. Coney island app though is distinctly Pakistani, so I figured if I was going to. Mangoes in New York, it would be there. You look and there's Pak pharmacy wireless like Pakistan, or like Pak meaning fewer there's signs and Urdu there's uh, um,  grocery and halal store. One chilly september afternoon, I walked up and down this block of Coney island Ave. There are tons of ostensibly Pakistani grocers here. Up and down this block, I'd walk from one store to the next, looking for mangoes. 

So when I asked if they had Pakistani mangoes, the shop owners all said pretty much the exact same thing. Yes. But the season is over now. 

Bridget Lancaster: Oh. They did? 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: They did. 

Munzir Shah: So, um, for myself, when we have the mango out, one box in front of me and I leave it there and I'm watching all day.

Ahmed Ali Akbar:  That's Munzir Shah. He's the owner of Seven Days Grocery, one of the oldest Pakistani markets in the area. He's charismatic and kind of mischievous and he rocks a black mustache. He describes mango season as a little bit frantic. He says he sold about 300 boxes this season at about 27 or $28 a box. And they're not just attracting Pakistanis, his mango clientele extends to Jamaicans, Mexicans, or really anybody who can appreciate their beauty.

Munzir Shah:  Because they had the quality, they had the smell. And, and when you see let's say one mango piece in your hand, you don't want to eat. You just want to look, you know, these looked like very pretty. I don't say, they look like nice. They look like very pretty. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: I have a pretty poor sense of smell, but there is no hiding a Pakistani mango. It fills up the whole room with what I would call a perfume, a floral perfume.

It's unlike any mangoes available at a typical US market, kind of like bringing a bouquet of the most intoxicating honeyed edible flowers into the room. I spoke to many corner store owners in New York and one in Michigan, and most confirmed that they've stocked Pakistani mangoes on and off since 2011 or so. So you may ask, why go through all the trouble of picking it up from an airport, if you can just go to your local desi store?

So I spoke with a couple of the other grocery stores here, and they've also made the point that the season was poor. And by the time it gets to the customers, by the time it's in your hand, it's not good anymore. It's past ripeness, which seems to be a consistent problem. 

So, yeah, you may be able to find a taste of home at your local Pakistani store, if you're lucky enough to live in an area with a lot of bases like Chicago or New York, and if you're willing to pay a premium. The mangoes are coming from so far and they have to go through so many middlemen that they also can be past ripeness by the time they get to the customer. Plus the demand is super high, the boxes move quickly, so you may not even be able to buy from your favorite Pakistani market consistently. Munzir told me that there's a local company that deals with the logistics, it seems like a truck comes by and drops off mangoes at all of the local stores. 

Mohammad Baig: I'm telling like, almost like, uh, three or four years, this mangoes, because before we don't find it, it's hard to find it because the people that deliver to us, he come in somewhere in Texas or somewhere? And the people bring from Texas to here and then he distribute to all the shops. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Before I left, I had one more burning question. 

Do you talk to your customers on WhatsApp ever?

Mohammad Baig:  Yeah, of course.

Ahmed Ali Akbar:  Do they buy mangoes off of WhatsApp?

Mohammad Baig:  WhatsApp, I say how you like my babies? 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: And they buy them off WhatsApp?

Mohammad Baig: Yeah, of course, of course. Oh, the ladies, mens, women, kids, whatever. 

Ahmed Ali Akbar: Yeah.

So at this point, we know box tiny mangoes are hard to find in the U S. They were granted important 2010, but somehow still remains scarce. We know they're available for a premium on mangozz.com. And we also know that some local desi markets will carry them for a few short weeks in the summer. And we know a lot of this business is conducted on, you guessed it WhatsApp, but to be honest, I have still yet to make any significant breaks in the case.

I knew I would only get my answers if I could crack the supply chain.

Bridget Lancaster:  Next week in part two of the WhatsApp mango trade reporter, Ahmed Ali Akbar goes to Texas to break open the case of this mysterious industry. Be sure to tune in next week for the conclusion. If you want to see images from Ahmed's mango reporting, well, they're up on our website. That's www dot America's test kitchen.com/proof. Go check it out. And one more thing. If you like proof, then be sure to subscribe. So you'll get new episodes as soon as they drop. And while you're there, why not leave us a rating or write us a review? It really helps other people find the show.

Proof is hosted and produced by me, bridget Lancaster. Our executive producer is Kaitlin Keleher. Sarah Joiner is our producer. Associate producer, Caroline Rickert. Scoring sound design and mixing by Matt Boynton of ultraviolet audio. Brian Campbell of signal sounds composed our theme music, additional music by Kyle Forrester and Jordan Pearson post production support from Hen Margolis.

Our production manager is Diane Knox, fact checking by Kya Williams. Jack Bishop is a Chaunsa  mango and the chief creative officer of America's test kitchen. David Nussbaum is our CEO. Thanks again to our sponsors. Bob's red mill, color chef steps and OXO proof is a production of America's test kitchen. .