What if we tell you that your favourite summer treat — mangoes — has a museum in India?

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With over 200 varieties of fruit to admire, the museum is a 12.5-acre farmland with thousands of mango trees.

Located just three kilometres away from the Gir Forest National Park in Bhalchhel village, the museum is a family effort headed by Sumeet Jhariya.

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The founding stones of the museum were laid back in 1985 when Sumeet’s grandfather, Noor Ali Veera Jhariya, migrated from neighbouring Sangodra village to the area.

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He purchased 10 acres of land in Bhalchhel to start a mango orchard. By 1990, he had upscaled his farm and was selling almost 10,000 saplings a year.

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His curiosity about the fruit led him to collect more varieties from across the country. “He sourced 14 mango varieties initially and grew them in the orchard,” Sumeet explains. Sumeet’s father Samshuddin, also developed an interest and the duo continued collecting more and more varieties of mangoes.

The result was a collection of 230 mango varieties — including Chinna Rasam, Chandrama, Chaunsa, Langda, Daseri, Katimon, Bajrang Baramasi, Baramasi Valsad, Kesar, and Alphonso.

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The farm has recently also started growing the world’s costliest mango variety — Miyazaki mango, which typically costs around Rs 2.75 lakh per kg. They also have dwarf mangoes and a seedless variety known as Sindhu-117 and varieties native to the USA, Thailand, Israel, Australia and Europe.

All the mangoes in the museum farm are grown using organic methods and drip irrigation to save water.

Besides opening their doors to visitors, the family also grows two lakh mango saplings a year making a profit of Rs 45 lakh a year, under the name Anil Mango Farms and Nursery.