To match the ever increasing standards of fresh products, and the need to reduce waste, we devise an alternative to the destructive and highly variable fruit ripeness estimation by a penetrometer. We propose a fully automatic method to assess the ripeness of mango which is non-destructive, allows the user to test multiple surface areas with a single touch and is capable of dissociating between ripe and non-ripe fruits. A custom-made gripper equipped with a capacitive tactile sensor array is used to palpate the fruit. The ripeness is estimated as mango stiffness extracted through a simplified spring model. We test the framework on a set of 25 mangoes of the Keitt variety, and compare the results to penetrometer measurements. We show it is possible to correctly classify 88% of the mango without removing the skin of the fruit. The method can be a valuable substitute for non-destructive fruit ripeness testing. To the authors knowledge, this is the first robotics ripeness estimation system based on capacitive tactile sensing technology