best flavor list

I agree with another responder ... I can take or leave Sungold. I grow it to give away.

Every year my husband and I host an informal tomato tasting. I make up sheets with the names and a little history of each tomato, with space for ratings and notes. The format is just like a wine tasting; water and plain crackers on the table along with an assortment of salts. I slice each tomato just before passing it around, and we taste first without salt then with. I put out a bunch of finger food afterwards plus the adult beverages so folks can eat, chat and finish filling out the sheets.
People fight over their favorites to take home. It’s big fun.

Cherokee Purple rates highly, as does Chocolate Amazon. They are always amazed by the GWR varieties.
A couple of surprises were Lime Green Salad and Tim’s Black Ruffles. I love them both but never thought others would.
Pics are of last year’s event ... staging beforehand and filling out sheets after.

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

BINGO!!!!!

In addition all of us have different taste buds on our collective tongues ,so take a perfectly well grown tomato variety and then cut up some slices and ask folks to rate the taste and the results will be all over the place.

taste buds

https://www.google.com/search?q=tast...&bih=815&dpr=1

So no,I'm one who will not make any suggestions.

Carolyn

Interesting that the Wiki article calls out 5 different types: salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. I was only aware of the 1st four. Sometimes I am not sure of the accuracy of the information found in Wiki articles.

[reubenT]

Oh yes, not an exact science by any means. there will be lots of differences due to everyone having a bit different opinion and the difference weather and soil types make. That makes it more interesting. The watering down of flavor due to too much rain can be offset with adding more minerals and a bit more nitrogen, (like ammonia sulfate) and I like using biochar and/or compost to soak up the soluble elements and help prevent leaching. I'm planning on getting a commercial size greenhouse going and will likely try to do tomatoes in the first one, and would like to go with the most flavorful varieties possible. Probably be next fall before it's ready, but will start plenty for the garden by spring.

[Hensaplenty]

Every year my husband and I host an informal tomato tasting.

PlainJane, what a great way to have fun fellowship with friends. And.... what a great way to share your gardening passion with others!

Originally Posted by Hensaplenty

Every year my husband and I host an informal tomato tasting.

PlainJane, what a great way to have fun fellowship with friends. And.... what a great way to share your gardening passion with others!

It’s always crazy, because once we commit to a date it’s a race to get enough ripe ones of each variety to taste. The dining table will be filled with tomatoes for a week in advance with the ac cranked up, lol.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by rhines81

Interesting that the Wiki article calls out 5 different types: salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. I was only aware of the 1st four. Sometimes I am not sure of the accuracy of the information found in Wiki articles.

I'm glad you mentioned that last one,Umami, since I couldn't remember it. That taste is unique to certain Japanese foods.

Carolyn

A mention of umami in tomatoes is in How to Eat Better Simple Science to Supercharge Your Nutrition by James Wong.

"Cherry tomatoes are .... much richer in flavor than the bigger types. This is because the chemical responsible for the savoury, umami flavor of tomatoes is concentrated in the gel that surrounds their many seeds containing six times as much as the flesh that beefsteaks proportionally have more of."

[oldman]

Umami is a flavor that's both meaty and earthy. I'm not sure it's unique to Japanese cuisine, but there are Japanese dishes that feature it prominently. I associate it with some mushrooms, most fish sauce, and beets (which I'm not a big fan of). If you taste something other than salty when eating caviar, that's probably umami too.

Hot pepper aficionados would probably tell you that heat is a taste, but in my experience hot peppers are more about organic damage and pain than they are taste.

[ddsack]

And for a few people, there is the question of texture. I have always preferred tomatoes that are juicy with thin skins. My son grew up hating fresh tomatoes, would pick them out of salads. I recently had dinner at his house, and I noticed he was serving store bought hard and crunchy grape tomatoes. When questioned, he said that he liked them crunchy and it was the "slimy" texture of most tomatoes that had always turned him off. Who knew? I hate crunchy.

[sjamesNorway]

Our favorites for taste so far are:

Not Vintage Wine,
and for "old-fashioned" taste: Rosado de Ayerbe

Rosado de Ayerbe has a taste which I would describe as high in umami due to the depth of pure "tomato flavor" - to my individual, basically indefinable, taste!

Umami is a taste recognized internationally, and by no means confined to Japanese foods. It's probably most familiar to us through the use of monosodium glutamate. Here are some excerpts from Wikipedia:

In 1985, the term umami was recognized as the scientific term to describe the taste of glutamates and nucleotides at the first Umami International Symposium in Hawaii.[13] Umami represents the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5’-ribonucleotides such as guanosine monophosphate (GMP) and inosine monophosphate (IMP).[14] It can be described as a pleasant "brothy" or "meaty" taste with a long-lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue.

Generally, umami taste is common to foods that contain high levels of L-glutamate, IMP and GMP, most notably in fish, shellfish, cured meats, mushrooms, vegetables (e.g., ripe tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, spinach, celery, etc.) or green tea, and fermented and aged products involving bacterial or yeast cultures, such as cheeses, shrimp pastes, fish sauce, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and yeast extracts such as Vegemite and Marmite.[

Steve

[NarnianGarden]

Yes. Umami is the rich flavor that monosodium glutamate is used for as an easy solution...

[Tormato]

Most green and black tomatoes should go down the rabbit hole.

[GrowingCoastal]

Black tomatoes are my favourites!

Rosella Purple Dwarf - mmmmmmm.

[green_go]

Chocolate Beefsteak was absolute best of the best in term of flavour.
And this is not just my and my husband opinion - the raccoons in the area can confirm that too. They were consistently devouring the fruits from Chocolate Beefsteak plant ignoring all other ripe tomatoes... I had to isolate and wrap the Chocolate Beefsteak plant in bird's netting trying to keep raccoons away from it - but hey ripped it and continued to steal the fruits. At the end, I started to harvest the semi-ripe Chocolate Beefsteak tomatoes and let them ripen in the house, so I can enjoy them too. Those beasts have a d amn good taste!

Originally Posted by green_go

Chocolate Beefsteak was absolute best of the best in term of flavour.
And this is not just my and my husband opinion - the raccoons in the area can confirm that too. They were consistently devouring the fruits from Chocolate Beefsteak plant ignoring all other ripe tomatoes... I had to isolate and wrap the Chocolate Beefsteak plant in bird's netting trying to keep raccoons away from it - but hey ripped it and continued to steal the fruits. At the end, I started to harvest the semi-ripe Chocolate Beefsteak tomatoes and let them ripen in the house, so I can enjoy them too. Those beasts have a gosh darnoodley good taste!

Too funny!