Quote:
Originally Posted by tedln
Speaking only for myself, I sometimes wonder if it would be helpful to be color blind when judging the taste quality of various tomatoes. I wonder if my prejudice for red tomatoes ("it ain't a tomato if it ain't red") causes me to lower my estimation of the flavors of orange, yellow, GWR, black and other color varieties.
Of the yellow/orange varieties, only KBX and Orange Minske have flavors which are outstanding to me. I wonder if I like them so much because they taste like the best tasting red tomatoes. The other yellow/orange varieties may have subtle flavors I can't detect.
Of the black tomatoes, only Black Krim, Black From Tula, Indian Stripe; and possibly Carbon have a subtle smokey flavor I like. Some people say they have a salty taste instead of a smokey taste. I can't detect salty flavors in anything until it becomes strongly salty so I would never detect a salty flavor in a tomato. We may also be describing the same flavor two different ways.
Most pink tomatoes are simply milder flavors of red tomatoes to my taste buds.
I haven't found a GWR tomato which tastes good in comparison to other tomatoes. I discount the description of sweet tomatoes because my taste preferences are not sweet. Acidic or tart is probably my strongest preference and those flavors are most commonly found in bright red tomatoes.
Ted
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Good post Ted and first I'm going to do a twofer,if you will
I have grown Purple Calabash as well as Red Calabash and can't stand the taste,but Ted,thinking of you who likes acidic or tart,please do grow it.
IDing varieties while blindfolded so they can't see anything? Yes,I've done it a few times and the results were very interesting.
Before doing it folks got a number pinned to their clothes and had to fill out a form saying whether they were pretty new to tomatoes,very experienced,etc.
We cut slices of a variety and put them on plates,blindfolded the person sitting in a chair far from that table,then each person had an escort to hold hands with and go down thru the plates,the escort had a rating sheet that corresponded to the #of the tomato.
Taste was not asked for,color was.See below.
It took those of us who organized it quite a bit of time to tally the results,and in the meantime folks got to know eacho ther if they hadn't known them before,and simple snacks were available.Both homegrowers and commercial growers were invited,actually everyone was,but we wanted to be sure some of the commercial heirloom growers were there.
There was no good correlation between those who had no experience with tomatoes and those that didn't as far as determining color
I forgot, we also had on the sheet what color tomatoes do you prefer, and the escort would write that down and ask the person what color tomato they were eating.
There was little to no correlation between what the person thought the color was and what it really was.
I loved it so much I organized the same kind of event,now for tasting for two other groups,one was the local Master Gardeners group and the other was the members of a local mens gardening club.
They knew the color, but yes there were differences in tastes of a single variety..
Please notice that the participants were NOT asked to describe taste in the first instance above since I knew that that would not work since different folks taste differently and there are human genes that also influence taste.
Yes,I did organize some taste testings with just my own fruits since that's another variable when many bring fruits from their own gardens where taste was one of the major traits,and even had crackers and water between each tasting to clear the palate.
I just got an e- mail from Rob who raises my seedlings for me since I had told him my tomatoes were a disater this year,so tomorrow he's bringing some for me,since Carolyn,meself,cannot believe that from 17 plants not enough fruits to eat.
Carolyn