tomato taste off

[JRinPA]

Yesterday's tomatoes

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Today's taste off
The Competitors:
Stump of the World (on left)
Sweet Ozark Orange (middle)
Cuostralee (on right)

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true color outdoors on boat deck for taste test

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The Results:
SOO is juicy, very sweet, a hint of tomato tang
Stump is juicy, sweet, meaty, a moderate tomato tang
Cuostralee is juicy, moderately sweet, a large tomato tang

The Winner:
Me Me and Me.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Marvelous lineup, there, JR!

Nothing quite like August for Tomato Ranchers (in these here parts leastways), am I right?

The Gotch

[Yak54]

I'd like to know how you would rate AGP against SOTW and Cuostralee ???

[karstopography]

Cuostralee is on my 2024 grow list. Looks like it is more on the tangy side which is good, I grow enough sweet tomatoes.

[JRinPA]

Cuostralee is sweet too, just less so, at least this one. This was just one taste off, but it generally affirms my past thoughts on these three.

A Very tangy tomato, maybe the most I've had, was thessaloniki. Had to grow that. It was supposed to be a greek tomato, and Pop, my grandfather, was off the boat - but it was much thinner flesh than I like.

AGP - I tried at least two so far. And I was going to post pics of both stump and AGP and ask Tormato to decide which was which. They look so much alike. I do want to try the direct taste off.

One I didn't actually like yesterday was the first GGWT. I'm not sure what to make of that taste. First time I ever had a green when ripe.

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That Mountaineer Delight is actually a pretty meaty round red, not much juice, and gets redder than Big Beef. Taste was okay, just not the zip I like. So maybe a little flippant saying it is like a Big Beef. Big Beef would have been earlier and heavier production, but that MD is probably a better sandwich tomato.

I'm really waiting for some of those Estler's ML and Cherokee purple to ripen, I haven't had either yet.

[JRinPA]

See now I'm already wrong I think, with that above pic. Those 3 pinks above are, I think the Russian one, ""Big Rose"", Rosvye Krupne.

This is why I can only grow one of each color per year. I'm going to need to number them on the bottom when I pick them.

2nd week of August, not the time to go on vacation! I picked a bunch more today including two cherokee purples. I am also on my way to proving that the concept of diminishing returns does not really apply to tomato sandwiches.

[MissS]

@JRinPA the marker always goes out with me when I harvest. It's too easy for me to mix them up if I don't mark them then and there as they come off of the vine.

[slugworth]

and people I donate the tomatoes to- *Bleep* about that.
just can't win.

[karstopography]

I was dutiful about immediately marking up with the marker which tomato was which in the first half of the season. Later on that mark them with a marker immediately discipline slipped some and it was more like that might be a Polish or is it SOTW when it came time to cut them up to eat. Dester was easy to pick out because it was flatter than the other pinks I grew. A ripe Polish was hard to tell apart from a ripe SOTW without being marked up. When it is peak season and beyond and a lot of ripe and ripening fruit has come inside and most of the tomatoes have been taste tested already, I’m more nonchalant about which tomato is which. It was nice when I was giving tomatoes away to family or friends to have the tomatoes marked so that they could tell me which tomatoes they liked best.

They are all good in their own way and all much better than the supermarket versions, marking or not marking the tomatoes doesn’t change that fact.

[slugworth]

next year I may bag picked ones and mark the bags.
for bragging rights and for saving seeds.

[JRinPA]

So you give a tomato to someone and they cringe because the bottom is sharpie marked?

[slugworth]

top by the stem that nobody eats anyway
have to find an organic marker

[karstopography]

So you give a tomato to someone and they cringe because the bottom is sharpie marked?

I put a little identification mark up around the stem or shoulder area usually and haven’t gotten any complaints about the sharpie marks. I shorten or abbreviate the marks typically to two or three or maybe four letters. Polish is POL, SOTW is stump of the world, Big Zac is BZ, Dester is Des. The people that I give tomatoes to might not know the code, but they can check with me and Iet them know which tomato is which.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Little piece of masking tape, with the abbreviations @karstopography suggests.

The Gotch

[JRinPA]

I'd eat marker before masking tape residue, yet they are both so minor I wouldn't care. I never wash them or anything either.

Taste Off 2
AGP(L) versus Cuostralee(R)
This is the not read for prime time AGP from above, had some cut away. Versus a typical medium sized cuostralee

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Round one,
AGP is fine, about like stump, maybe a little less sweet but it was an imperfect example.
Cuostralee is again a good balanced sweet and a lot of tomato tang.

Round two, unrecorded, I finished off the less choice leavings of both, with a little bacon on top.
The AGP discards had a bit more sweetness than the choice cuts. So you never know.
The cuostralee bottom and shoulders were the same boring awesomeness.

The shades of the flesh of the pink and red here really look similar. I remember reading that Pink is a clear skin, Red is yellow skin, but the flesh is the same color. Seems to hold true with cuostralee and these pinks.

[rossomendblot]

My GGWT are always dark red inside, I don't think they're supposed to be green when ripe, apart from the green streaks on the skin.

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

My GGWT are always dark red inside, I don't think they're supposed to be green when ripe, apart from the green streaks on the skin.

Same.... My GGWT are a dark brick red when ripe with green stripes. Fantastic tomato - if ripe.

Try again but let it stay on the vine until it's ready and then report back on flavor.

[karstopography]

That’s the thing about tomato taste offs. Getting the tomato cut at peak ripeness. It is documented that the first tomatoes tasted in a tomato taste off score higher than subsequent tomatoes. Sensory fatigue comes into play with tomatoes down the list.

Then there’s the how much tomato can anyone stand to eat at one sitting? A fat slice or wedge of this variety or that variety and it isn’t long before I’m waving the white flag.

To be honest, I find it hard to fairly evaluate each and ever variety that comes out of my garden. Some tomatoes get lucky as I’m cutting them when they are at the highest potential and my taste buds and sense of smell haven’t been affected by something else I might have eaten or smelled.

There’s only so many days in the season when tomatoes are at the peak and at their best and seasons vary so that a mid-season tomato might be better one year and a late season the next.

[JRinPA]

So GGWT is not considered a green when ripe? My bad.
Was it ripe on that tail gate shot? (FAR LEFT)
Some web pics look like that, others less green stripe, still others almost no green stripes.
The flesh looked and felt ripe, not hard or anything, just tasted...well weird is right there in the name. Tasted neutral in every way? Smoky neutral, is that a flavor?

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[JRinPA]

If I want to continue the taste off I need to clear the table of the already picked stuff and restart with marked fruit. Still waiting on EML..not a hint of color on any at present. Starting to change from green to lighter green, but that's about it. And I'm just now seeing some more black from Tula ripening - the first one was the very first ripe tomato like 3 weeks back.