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Cherry Tomato Types That Beat Sungold? Any on my list?

7 years ago

Do any of the varieties listed beat sungold/sunsugar in terms of taste? I'm a real fan of sungold/sunsugar and want to know if other varieties may be worth growing too. If you have had issues with the taste of a variety, I would also like to know that as well.





Sungella

Honey Bunch

Golden Gem

Tangella

Sweet Orange Cherry

Esterina

SunPeach

Suncherry

Cerise Orange

Orange Sunshine

Lollipop

Rosalia

Isis Candy

Nectar

Sungold

Sweet Baby Girl

Sunsugar

Ambrosia Gold

Snow White

Sweat Treats

Amys Apricot

Yellow Cherry Warrens Strain

Natures Bites

Sakura

Golden Sweet

Sweet Gold

Sugary

Candyland Red

Aunt Rubys Yellow Cherry

Lemon Drop

Sugar Plum

Sundrop

Ildi

Coyote

Black Opal

Blondkopfchen

Apricot Dream

Sugar Rush


Comments (38)

  • 7 years ago

    Garnet and Black Cherry are very similar in flavor. I prefer both to Sungold.

  • 7 years ago

    I did a small growing/taste test of various cultivars of cherry tomatoes a few year ago now and none were as productive or as tasty as Sungold. Sweet 100's came close but had a completely different flavor.

    Sungold is all I grow now......it is tomato candy!!

    btw, Sunsugar is NOT the same as Sungold. I have also tried Sunsugar and it didn't come close to Sungold in comparison.

  • 7 years ago

    I agree with you gardengal48. Sungold is da bomb and Sunsugar (which I grew last year) didn't come close. My only problem is that I find that Sungold goes funky tasting late in the season :(.

  • 7 years ago

    Thanks for the great info so far. Its just a huge question that always crosses my mind if anything does beat sungold for someone in terms of taste. Black cherry was good for me too and I did grow that for a few years as well.

  • 7 years ago

    I have grown several on your list, and no, none of them have the fruity sweetness of Sungold, but Sugary is very yummy and I always grow it. Gardener's Delight and Sweet Million, not on your list, are also very good.
    Carla in Sac

  • 7 years ago

    I love the taste of Sungold, but I don't really consider it a true tomato taste. For the best of that I'd have to vote for a full size tomato such as Brandy Boy. And I agree with others...Sungold and Sunsugar are not the same. The taste is similar but the Sunsugar plants do not grow and produce as well for me.

  • 7 years ago

    I've grown Sungold and Sun Sugar for years...can't go wrong if you want really sweet tomatoes. Black Cherry is hit or miss...some years it tastes really watery and has a tough skin. I am intrigued by Barry's Crazy Cherry Tomato...saw someone on Youtube raving about this one, said the flavour rivalled Sungold and if you look at pictures of the growing plant, it doesn't seem real that a plant can support that many tomatoes.

  • 7 years ago

    Which ones have you grown from my list Sautesmom? Yes, my sunsugar plants get a little spindly some seasons compared to sungold. I have seen Barry's crazy tomato, its the one that produces tons on a truss. I will look into that one :)

  • 7 years ago

    I have grown

    Sweet Orange Cherry

    Lollipop

    Rosalia

    Isis Candy

    Sungold

    Sweet Baby Girl

    Sunsugar

    Snow White

    Sakura 

    Sweet Gold

    Sugary

    Aunt Rubys Yellow Cherry

    Lemon Drop

    Coyote

  • 7 years ago

    I have grown Sunsugar since 1999 when I was a seed tester. It is the best tasting cherry tomato in my opinion. Sungold tastes similar but splits terribly with only a small amount of rain. The Sungold plants grew well but I tore them out anyways do to the splitting. Sunsugar are extremely productive and my plants are now between 7-8 feet tall and loaded with tomato candy.

  • 7 years ago

    I'm finally getting around to trialing SunSugar this year. I've had SunGold in the garden every year for 15+ years. And, I'm not expecting SunSugar to come anywhere close to the taste of SunGold, going by many, many reviews of those who've tried both.


    I also have a few F2 plants of SunGold, from saved seed of "odd" fruit. One was from a multi-fused blossom, and another was from a fruit of about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (the only large one on the plant).


  • 7 years ago

    You'll be pleasantly surprised!


  • 7 years ago

    Barry's Crazy Cherry does not rival sungold. It grows tons of little tomatoes, but it doesn't taste very good. No one I shared then with last year was impressed (except my dog, he liked them). I eventually quit picking them.

  • 7 years ago

    Tomatoes are very subjective in taste.

    We like sungold, isis candy, sweet 100s, sweet millions, and a little black cherry thing ... sungold and sweet 100s are most prolific.

  • 7 years ago

    rileyblue7a, your dog doesn't sound like a gourmet {LOL}. OTOH, my dog obviously has exquisite taste because she LOVES Sungold. I try to palm off other cherries onto her, but she goes and sits close to the Sungold plant to make me give her those instead :).

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Sweet Orange Cherry, though a fine tomato, and one of my favorites (and definitely prolific), is not super sweet (mine actually is sweet this year, grown in black plastic, but it hadn't been particularly in previous years without it). But then, my version of it is yellow (and early). It came from dianeseeds.com. TomatoFest might have an orange version.

    You might consider Green Tiger for a tasty super sweet tomato that might rival Sungold F1. I tried it last year and it was consistently quite sweet.

    I'm thinking Coyote wouldn't rival it, but I have yet to taste a fully ripe one. (I tasted some partially ripe ones; hopefully I'll get one soon.)

    I've tried Ildi, and it wasn't that sweet or prolific for me. It wasn't in the best soil for production.

  • 7 years ago

    Thank you for all the responses everyone. This is all very helpful information! I appreciate it.

  • 7 years ago

    SunSugar, the first taste... it has the sweetness of SunGold, but nowhere near the intense flavor. Maybe further into the season it will improve.

  • 7 years ago

    We've got Sungold and Esterina growing next to one another right now. Sungold's skin seems to be a bit thick this year. Esterina in comparison is a slightly leggier plant, but it has thinner skin and is a little less acidic.

    We grew Snow White last year, it was was tasty and had thin skin, but the plant was pretty big without much production ... didn't seem worth it.

    We really like Yellow Pear (though that's not on your list). We're planning on growing it again next year instead of Sungold.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    @BlueberryBundtcake If you like yellow, pear-shaped very sweet tomatoes, you might try Medovaya Kaplya. It's potato leaf; it's a pretty simple sweetness, though, which is why I didn't mention it earlier. I can give you seeds if you want. Yellow Pear is more prolific, though. Another tomato with simple sweetness, but a bold sweetness is Ron's Carbon Copy. I got a pink-fruited cross with it that was totally awesome-tasting in 2017. I'm growing its child, this year, but I'm still waiting on fruit to ripen (the plant was late to start; it is starting to set fruit well, though). Both MK and RCC are extremely sweet (but I wouldn't call them complex). RCC is probably often more complex, from reviews I've read (I watered it a lot). If you want a very complex flavor try Ovita! It's not super sweet, though, but it's awesome. Someone should cross that with Green Tiger, Ron's Carbon Copy, Malinovoe Chudo (not a cherry), Cherokee Green Pear (also not a cherry), or something.

  • 7 years ago

    Shule, do taste Carbon Copy again. Someone wrote that it's not sweet, and that surprised me because I thought that it was, but if you taste it alongside one that you know is sweet, I bet you will change your mind too {LOL}. Don't get me wrong, CC is an awesome, flavourful tomato :).

    I think that Yellow Pear is bland, and will never grow it again, however pretty it is :P.

    For me, Maglia Rosa is holding its own against Nappa Chardonay and even Sungold so far!!!!! I know that I won't enjoy it as much later in the season when Blush will be my absolute favourite for taste...

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    @Labradors,

    I've already compared it to other sweet tomatoes, side by side, and it was actually sweeter than those. I haven't compared it side by side to Sungold F1 or Green Tiger, though. What did you compare it to? I compared it to Medovaya Kaplya, a special multiflora cherry, Monroe, Maglia Rosa, Cherokee Green Pear, and Malinovoe Chudo (which though not super sweet for a cherry is super sweet for a beefsteak), and a bunch of tomatoes that weren't particularly sweet to me (although I'm sure some people would think some sweet). I'm not sure which of those I tried side by side besides MK and RCC, but definitely contrasted them all that season. I grew about a hundred kinds of tomatoes that year, and it was probably the sweetest, on average (for peak sweetness, in a fruit with BER, Cherokee Green Pear was sweeter). I have only grown the true RCC once, though, and it was heavily watered. I want to grow it in drought conditions with black plastic. Usually that makes tomatoes sweeter and more acidic here; so, if so, that would be cool. I have a hard time imagining that it wouldn't be sweet if I tried it again, but I'm adventurous. So, I might try it for you. The pink cross I tried the next year was about as sweet, however, but I don't know if I compared it to anything else that was particularly sweet. The cross had drought conditions without black plastic.

    RCC is a young breed, though. It might not be stable, which might explain why it might taste different. I think my seeds were either F3, F6 or F7 (I forgot which).

    To be honest, I've never grown Sungold F1, but I tasted it in someone's garden.

    Sorry for how the post was before I edited it the first time. The stuff I took out was part of a first draft of my reply (which I deleted before I posted, but Houzz put it back in due to a bug that happens with Houzz when I write on my Kindle Fire).

    I don't know if I have any uncrossed RCC seeds, though.

    I had another tomato (a Husky Cherry Red F4 or so) that tasted super sweet to me, but sour to a couple others (although at least one of them liked it). We don't agree on taste a terrible lot, though. Everyone here who tried it seemed to agree that RCC was sweet, and unusual, however, but they were more excited about Ovita and Matina, even though they weren't sweet. Some of them don't like super sweet flavors, though, but I do.

  • 7 years ago

    Well there you go! It could just be a personal thing. FYI I like tomatoes with a sweet, but complex taste like Little Lucky. Carbon Copy definitely has the complex taste. My CC are something like F5. They were called Carbon Copy before the "Ron's" was added. I thought they tasted great until one year I also grew Rosella Cherry. I thought Rosella were sweet and I preferred them at the beginning of the season, but then CC tasted better to me later on.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Oh, if you're just looking for cherries that beat Sungold for flavor, rather than for both flavor and sweetness, see if you think Ovita does it! It had a very complex flavor that surprised us.

  • 7 years ago

    Sungold is very sweet however.......doesn’t really have that savoury tomato taste. And it is small and cracks very easily. My fav is black cherry.

  • 7 years ago

    I tried some riper Coyotes, today, and I think I might retract my previous statement. I can see a certain appeal to it. Sure took a while to get fully ripe once it softened, though!

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I've heard people say Sunorange F1 is better (not necessarily that it tastes better, but that it tastes at least as good and has improved qualities like fruit size and other things). I think they liked Sunpeach F1, too, but they didn't say whether it was better than or even similar to Sungold. Sunlemon F1 was another they probably mentioned.

  • 7 years ago

    I am the farthest from being a "veggie gardener" but for the past 3 seasons we have had such fun with a single SUNGOLD in a half barrel planter. It goes in the pot in mid May, always a single 6" scrawny specimen and as shown today it is 4.5 tall (not counting the pot). (It would be a larger height and width but due to the container and the difficulty in securing vertical supports we are always trimming it back).





    (I have wanted to try Sun Sugar but SG is much easier to find in the spring and I just can't imagine it being better than SG.)

  • 7 years ago

    I guess I'll be the odd man out. My favorite small tomato is "Elfin", an OP grape tomato. Tender skin, nearly solid (like a miniature Roma), flavorful & only a little sweet. It also has two traits I really like: a bushy determinate habit, and terminal clusters of up to 50+! It can be grown without support, but I usually grow it in small cages, just to keep the mice from being tempted.

    Got lazy this year & bought "grape" plants locally, but a few Elfin still showed up as volunteers, and are in full bloom now. The only other tomatoes I've seen with such heavy flower density are the "centiflor" varieties developed by Alan Kapular of Peace Seeds.

  • 7 years ago

    Elfin sounds interesting. Would this be a candidate for a 3 gallon pot?


  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    "Elfin sounds interesting. Would this be a candidate for a 3 gallon pot?"

    Probably, although I have yet to try that. Because Elfin is determinate, it wouldn't waste energy (and nutrients) in endless foliage. The leaves are actually somewhat open, compared to most tomatoes I've grown... it seems to use the large clusters of green fruit as leaves?

    A good tomato for pot culture would be a currant tomato... the pot limits its otherwise rampant growth. Most of the currant tomatoes I tried had issues; the red ones cracked, the yellow ones dropped excessively when ripe. A yellow variety from Sample Seeds (Solanum spontaneum) does neither. Tiny 1/3-1/2" yellow fruit in numerous trusses of 10 or so. Seeds so tiny you won't know they are there. The ripe tomatoes keep for a very long time (at least several weeks) if picked with the stem attached; some will even dry. Not too sweet eaten out of hand, but pleasant, and good in salads. You'll get plenty out of one pot.

    Be warned, though - DON'T try growing that currant tomato in the ground, unless you want a 6-8' heavily branched monster, with literally thousands of tomatoes!!! I gave a friend one plant, which she planted next to her fence... it grew to be 3' wide, and climbed up & over the 6' fence into the neighbor's yard. She eventually got tired of picking them all.

  • 7 years ago

    My results are in. SunGold continues to be tops. SunSugar just doesn't have the flavor. And, one of the F2 plants of saved SunGold seed has enough promise to continue to the F3 stage. It tasted better than any of the SunGold OP's that I've tried, and better than SunSugar.

  • 7 years ago

    Tormato - that is interesting that you are having some luck trying to stabilize Sungold. I've heard a lot of people have tried and failed. I look forward to hearing how the F3 turns out.

  • 5 years ago

    @tormato how many SunGold F2 plants did u grow and how many F3 are u growing?

    Some people get red tomatoes from SunGold but i think this is because of crossings made by the external stigma of SunGold. What is your experience?

  • 5 years ago

    Just adding another comment: we grew Sunpeach last year and are growing it again this year, as it was a favorite last year. Chocolate Cherry was good, but Sunpeach was the favorite. Shimmer was prolific and made a great salad or stirfry tomato, though not wuite that pop 'em in snack size.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I need to update my previous comments. Nevermind what I said about Ovita (the flavor I described didn't repeat itself the next time I grew it, from the original seed packet or saved seed). Also nevermind what I said about SunOrange F1; it's probably pretty good, but from what I hear, SunGold F1 probably still beats it for flavor.

    From what I've read, the following varieties sound like promising candidates:

    * SunCitron F1

    * SunGarnet F1

    * SunChocola F1

    * SunDolce F1

    * Ambrosia Gold (This one's on your list.)

    * Ambrosia Red

    * Some people would probably think Black Cherry rivals SunGold F1.

    I'm growing out a lot of F2s and an F3 in the Sun series (not any SunGold F2s or F3s, though). One trend I'm seeing is that a number of these plants have long fruit (instead of round). I'm guessing their F1 ancestor had a grape tomato parent. I'm guessing both of SunGold F1's parents were round, though, as I've never heard otherwise. You might trial a bunch of sweet grape tomatoes to see what you think.

  • 5 years ago

    Mokinu Most interesting about the grape connection!


    Linda