The price is 1,300 pesos a pound, almost half of a monthly pension
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, October 2, 2025 — First was the garlic from the US, then came the beans from Mexico, and the mandarins and oranges from Peru have now landed in Cuba . This Thursday, a street vendor near Central Park in Havana offered his glossy merchandise with the new sticker that points to the origin and the company responsible for its trade. For 1,300 pesos a pound, almost half of a monthly pension, the client could take that piece of flavor home that was lost for ages to Cubans.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a mandarin in more than five years,” said a sweet old lady who came up. When the seller told her the prices of the imported products, which also included California onions, the woman’s face became a grimace. A young man, who appeared to be more financially solvent, also approached the cart and ended up buying two pounds of mandarins. “I’ve really missed these, I don’t remember the last time I saw them,” he explained, justifying the expense.
The steep fall in domestic agricultural production and the high prices of food, together with the attractive foreign fruit that is often cleaner and more carefully presented, have pushed diners to prefer imported fruits and vegetables, even though they cost more. Citrus fruits, which were once the pride of official propaganda, are among the most affected in recent decades by pests, hurricanes, the loss of international markets and State inefficiency.
I don’t know whether to eat them or hunt them,” the young man joked with his bag of freshly bought mandarins. “My mom tells me that when she was a child she ate a lot of them and always had that smell on her hands, so I bought them to surprise her.” From the Murcott variety, often called Mandarina Gold, the fruits that are sold these days in the Cuban capital are much appreciated for their juicy pulp, their sweet and intense flavor, their reddish orange skin and the fact that they are easy to peel and have few seeds.
Marketed by the company Inkagold, it is unlikely that, at the time of their collection, the agricultural workers who tore them from the branches imagined that those mandarins would end up in Cuban homes. The image of the Island is associated not only with sun, beaches and catchy music, but also with citrus fruits, like the lemon used in the mojito or the oranges enjoyed at the the seashore. But this idyllic tourist postcard is far from a reality where mandarins make everyone who passes in front of a truck driver raise their eyebrows, emit sounds of amazement and salivate profusely.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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