Recognised by the saffron hue of its pulp; the western Indian flagship cultivar and the second mango after Ratnagiri Alphonso to win Geographical Indication protection.
Hindi/Gujarati word for saffron — named after the brilliant saffron-orange colour of the ripe pulp.
The Kesar — kesar meaning saffron in Hindi and Gujarati — takes its name from the brilliant saffron-orange colour of its ripe pulp. It is the flagship mango of western India and the second variety after Ratnagiri Alphonso to be awarded a Geographical Indication tag, granted to Gir Kesar in 2011 to protect the cultivar's association with the Gir forest region of Saurashtra in Gujarat.
The Kesar's history is traceable to a single tree planted around 1931 by Junagadh's Nawab, Sir Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III, on the slopes of Mount Girnar. Salebhai Vohra, the orchard manager, is credited with selecting and propagating the cultivar. The Nawab himself was reportedly the one who named it Kesar after admiring its colour at the table. From those original Junagadh orchards, Kesar has spread across the Gir, Talala, Amreli and Bhavnagar districts and into adjacent Saurashtra — but Gir Kesar specifically refers to fruit grown within a defined buffer of the Gir forest.
A ripe Kesar is medium-sized (150–250 g), with a thin yellow-green skin that often retains a green patch even when fully ripe, a small flat stone, and a flesh that is uniformly saffron-orange and fibre-free. Brix sits in the 17–22° range, and the aroma is distinctly different from Alphonso — softer, slightly floral, with a faintly resinous note that some Gujarati eaters consider more refined than the Konkani Hapus's intensity. Season is mid-May through mid-June, slightly later than the Alphonso peak.
In the kitchen, Kesar is the canonical mango lassi mango — its saffron pulp produces the deep orange colour the drink is known for. It is the base for aamras in Gujarati households (often eaten with rotli rather than puri, as in Maharashtra), for kulfi, for high-end mango shrikhand, and increasingly for export-grade dried mango leather. Pulp processing plants around Junagadh handle a significant share of India's commercial mango-pulp exports, with Kesar as the dominant input — its saffron colour holds well through pasteurisation, which Alphonso's doesn't.