Soil and climate can make such a difference, but I adore Jaune Flammee, Cherokee Green and Aunt Ruby's German Green.

Why not check out all the 'best' and 'favorite' tomato lists over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. But keep in mind that taste is a purely subjective thing. What tastes wonderful to one person will taste terrible to another.

best-taste discussions

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tomato

Dave

Before you run off...I like a certain Mortgage Lifter strain, Some Pink Girls, Suddeth strain Brandywine, Pink, Big Beef, Ozark Pink, and Sun Gold.

Purple Cheroke and for cherries, sungold!

Anything you grow yourself is going to taste 10x better than anything from the supermarket. It is pretty of hard to find a BAD tomato variety.

Not that hard to find a bad variety. Taste, texture, production, disease resistance, and splitting are all factors that can combine to make a variety not worth planting.

Tomatoes You'll Never Plant Again
Tomatoes You'll Never Plant Again - Part II
Tomatoes You'll Never Plant Again - Part III

Rodney

Still, many tomatoes on those lists are both obscure and only bad because there are better ones, not because they are bad in and of themselves. But everyone's tastes and expectations are different.

This year "Chocolate Stripes" won our taste bud test. Our first time with these. Will plant many next year.

I think it's subjective and depended on seed strains and growing condition. Two people growing the same variety using seeds of different sources and quality could get different results.

I don't agree with the "Tomato You'll Never Plant Again" concept either, because there are too many variables that influence the result. I think garden method can make a big difference, I personally feel tomato grown in natural rich soil with lots of compost and abundance of available micronutrients will taste better than hydroponic tomatoes grown with 16 different elements (I have tried this and made a comparison) or grown in peat moss and watered with only MiracleGro (MY OPINION).

One thing I don't like is the idea of using the brix scale to determine taste, as in highest sugar contently, I don't think sweetness alone determine taste.

I agree it's subjective, and not just in the ways you mention - different people like different tastes. My husband absolutely loves tarter black/purples, and while I agree that they are delicious, I really prefer sweeter orange tomatoes if given the choice between the two. My daughter prefers the tomato-ey flavored reds. My son hates tomatoes ;)

Which makes it even harder to tell someone else what the best tasting tomato is for them, unless you know what they like in general.

Something I've noticed in the tomatoes I've grown over the years is that culture conditions can really affect taste. When I grew tomatoes near my papaya trees, for instance, the fruits had a funny taste that I did not care for. Other plants of the same variety grown in other areas away from the papaya roots tasted great. Too much water &/or lack of micronutrients seems to dilute flavour as well.

Carol - what is your favorite tomato?