Today I held a tomato tasting contest with some of my friends. I have to say I was very disappointed. Not with my friends but with my tomatoes. I went last to taste them and could not believe how many of the tomatoes were either bland or watery. Some seemed weak in flavor. I’ve eaten them all summer and couldn’t remember them like this. They were not at all like the sweet flavorful tomatoes I ate last month.

Then it hit me-the 3 inches of rain we had this past week really weakened the flavors. I have had many split their skins this week from taking on so much water and that explains why so many of my favorites were rather bland vs a month ago they were very flavorful. They say if you want the flavors more intense, cut back on watering during harvest time which I did. Usually we don’t have an over-abundance of rain, but we have this year. I haven’t had the drip system on in 2 weeks but mother nature choose to give us more rain than I can ever remember getting at this time of year.

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Never the less there were some outstanding tomatoes. Below is the ranking of the ones we tasted. There were many ties. I found it amazing that 7 of the tomatoes in the top ten were black or purple tomatoes. 6 were yellow and only 1 red tomato in the top ten. (Remember there were some ties which is why we have more then 10)

Many of the rest of the tomatoes were red which is interesting as most of us like to use red tomatoes for sauce where cooking brings out the flavors but don’t like to use other colors for sauce.

I think if I had had the contest 2 weeks ago before the rain, the results may have been very different but still feel the black tomatoes would have outshine the rest. Can you tell I’m partial?!

Thanks to all for helping out with the tasting and grading!

 

2013 TOMATO TASTING CONTEST

TOP TEN

1^st place-Paul Robeson-black tomato

2^nd place-Indigo Apple-black tomato

3^rd place-Brandy Boy-black tomato

4^th place-Black and Brown Boar-black tomato

4^th place-Big Sungold Select-yellow cherry tomato

5^th place-Cherokee Purple-black tomato

5^th place-Southern Nites-black tomato

6^th place-Sungold-yellow cherry tomato

7^th place-Juane Flamme-orange tomato

8^th place-Ananas Noire-green/black tomato

8^th place-Virginia Sweet-yellow tomato

8^th place- Porkchop-yellow tomato

9^th place-Galon De Melon-yellow cherry tomato

10^th place-Bloody Butcher-red tomato

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11^th place-Marmande-red tomato

12^th place-Big Zac-red tomato

13^th place-Costoluto Genevese-red tomato

14^th place-Pantano Romanesco-red tomato

14^th place-Green Grape-green cherry tomato

15^th place-Cour Di Bue-red tomato

15^th place-Gold Medal-yellow tomato

16^th place-Orange Wellington-orange tomato