Acidic tasting tomato varieties - recommendations?

General Gardening
#21

Jaune Flammee and Goose Creek are tart/tangy. Green Zebra also has similar flavor but with a different accent. For a very rich old fashioned tomato flavor, Akers West Virginia is hard to beat.

#22

thanx, these new additions better than Costoluto Genovese or Rutgers?

#23

Costoluto Genovese is a very intense flavored tomato with low sweetness best used to make sauce. You asked specifically for flavor similar to a lemon. Jaune Flamme, Goose Creek, and Green Zebra are very tart and come closest to a lemon tartness of the @3000 tomato varieties I’ve grown.

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#24

Thanks, got Jaune Flamme and Costoluto Genovese.

#25

Aunt Ruby’s German Green is also pretty tart. I’ve grown it a few times, the plant growth habit is very sturdy with thick stalks. For me the fruit has a distinctive tart, spicy flavor to it.

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#26

I grew up growing and eating only Rutgers but the current “Rutgers” I read may be “improved”. I wonder if the original un-messed with Rutgers still exists? I grew Jaune Flamme last year and liked it.

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#27

Folks looking for Rutgers, try this:

I’ve bought and grown this in the past and it’s a lovely and tasty tomato.

For tart/intense tomato cherry tomatoes, I like:
Valentine
Juliet

I’ve grown both in SoCal zone 10 and they have produced well, with intensely red fruit that ripens quickly and well on the vine.

I also like Sweet Carneros Pink from Wild Boar Farms - great flavor and production here and beautiful tomatoes with a pink/green speckling/striping.

I’d also recommend Sunchocola - one of the best (in my family’s opinion) tasting cherry-ish tomatoes. It’s on our “must grow each year” list. The seeds (when I bought them years ago) were quite expensive but they have proven to be worth every penny.

I need to write up a post of tomato varieties and flavors and my experience with them here in SoCal.

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#28

Out of your 3000 varieties, did you ever have a tomato that tasted salty? Not acidic, but actually salty. I had a volunteer one(from a neighbor’s yard) that was like that, and I kept it going for three years then it died on me…I didn’t realize how rare a taste that was until I started looking for another one and discovered no one knew what I was talking about. Can you think of any of your tomatoes that tasted salty?

#29

None I’ve grown, however, in Israel, tomatoes are grown that are described as salty.