I'd never heard of a Chocolate Cherry so did some Googling and found that Reimer's Seeds lists one. Interestingly enough they don't list the wonderful variety Black Cherry on the same page with all of the other cherries and TGS is the place of origin of Black Cherry. Some have been quoted as saying that Black Cherry looks chocolate colored but for me it's much darker.

So is this an instance of Reimer Seeds changing the name of a variety? I don't know. I do know it isn't listed in the more recent SSE Yearbook. And while I do know all of the Cherokee varieties that followed Cpurple, I've not heard of one that's a cherry.

Carolyn

Burpee's has their own new Black Cherry knock-off as well, called Black Pearl, a hybrid. Supposedly it's more productive, although how that is possible, I have no idea. I got 65 or 70 blossoms just on one truss of Black Cherry earlier this year.

Thank you both for responding. These aren't quite as dark as the pictures of Black Cherry that I've seen. I read the Reimer's description, and most of the cherries in the pint that I got where 1 1/4". I don't know if that 1/4" makes a difference as far as descriptions go. If I remember, before I eat the few that are left, I'll get a picture and post it. Thanks again.

Black Cherry is an OP & an heirloom. My first year to grow it & it was universally a sorta brown/red color for me. NOT the pretty black/cherry color. Will grow it always as it's one of the best cherry tomatoes around.

I have ordered from Full Circle Seeds,located in BC, a Cherry variety called "Brown Berry". Is it possible that this may be the same or similar to your Chocolate Cherry? A description of this variety can be seen by visiting their website at fullcircleseeds.com

I purchased some Chocolate Cherry tomatoes this morning at the local Farmer's Market...

noinwi, I grew CC for the first time this season. IMHO, comparing CC to BlackCherry, BC has a superior overall flavor. But CC has a good tomato flavor and is a bit larger than BC. I agree with Carolyn that ripe BC's be darker in coloration than ripe CC's. My
CC's present a dusky-purple coloration when ripe... BC's are deep purple when ripe. My CC's (this season) also demonstrate a decidedly pronounced aversion to cracking.

I am fermenting ~3K CC seeds now... more later. So they will be available to some who may wanna give CC a go next time around (I am rather certain that CC is an OP cultivar).

Reg

I have ordered from Full Circle Seeds,located in BC, a Cherry variety called "Brown Berry". Is it possible that this may be the same or similar to your Chocolate Cherry? A description of this variety can be seen by visiting their website at fullcircleseeds.com

*****

Brown Berry is also offered at the SSE online public catalog, and it's a variety that was bred in the Netherlands.

I've not grown it and don't intend to but the pictures I've seen are truly brown and aren't the dusky purple color Reginald reports.

Reg, what was the source of your so called Chocolate Cherry seeds?

Carolyn

Reginald,

Out of curiosity, is the epidermis of your Chocolate Cherry tomato clear or yellow.
How about the epidermis of your Black Cherry tomato?

The Black Cherry tomatoes I grew this summer had clear epidermis and had a very dark, purplish appearance.
I can see how if they'd had a yellow epidermis, they might've appeared dark chocolate brown.

Some people who have seen this picture mistook the Black Cherry tomatoes for grapes.

Reg, what was the source of your so called Chocolate Cherry seeds...

Carolyn, I got CC seed from Totally Tomatoes (2007 cat)... featured as a "New" cultivar. Mine do not have the deep-purple coloration that the ones depicted therein demonstrate. Most have a dusky purple-maroon-brownish hue. Interior flesh (what scant amount of it there is) coloration is mostly a maroon-red.

I have 3 CC plants and none show any obvious signs of disease so far. In addition to decent flavor, that is another reason I decided to save some of its seed and grow a few instances of it next time around.

Reg

Carolyn, I got CC seed from Totally Tomatoes (2007 cat)... featured as a "New" cultivar

****

Thanks Reg, for that didn 't come up in my Google search, but I'll go to TT and look to see what they say about it and where it came from. Just curious.

Carolyn

I got too much reflection on a white plate, and blue probably was not the best to show the color, but here it is:

Out of curiosity, is the epidermis of your Chocolate Cherry tomato clear or yellow...

hoosiercherokee, actually I would say it is rather clear. A translucent pink. I failed to grow any BlackCherry (Boo-Hoo) this time so I cannot comment thereupon wrt BC's skin color.

As stated earlier, I can shoot you a dose of CC seed if ya wanna give it a go. I will have saved more than 4K of its seeds.

Reg

noinwi, that looks just like black cherry to me. My black cherries were darker than that at times, during the summer, when the plants were midway through their season, but most of them looked just like your picture.

I agree with Doof ... although the Black Cherry tomatoes next to the Tom's Yellow Wonder in my picture look very dark purple, they only looked like that the last two weeks in July through mid August ... during a period of high heat and clear skies. The Black Cherries left ripening on the vine right now look identical to the ones in Noinwi's photo.

Additionally, Noinwi's tomatoes appear to have a clear epidermis ... therefore having no attributes that warrant the name "chocolate" which connotes "brown" in my mind.

Thanks all. Since I do like the way they taste, I'll save some seed and try a couple of plants next year.

To me, BC was superior to CC in taste and production.
CC lost it's flavor very fast for some reason.
Last year, BC lasted the longest of any of my tomato plants, all the way to Dec.

CC never got that dark for me. Very marbled look to them. And again, lost it's flavor about a month after the first ripe one. Had a very cardboard-ish flavor late in the season. Very crack free tomato though.

Might go back to BC next year. Won't do CC for sure.

Greg

maybe this will clear it up. I went to solana seeds and found the following
brown berry (chocolate cherry)
listing for seeds for sale. Like they are one and the same. Link attached.

Here is a link that might be useful: solana seeds, look up brown berry.

maybe this will clear it up...

sandy0225, that clears it up none too much in my head. Because if you examine Totally Tomatoes 2007 cat you will find ChockCherry and BrownBerry represented as different cultivars. Product differentiation... maybe. If knowingly so, it is a cheap shot by TT.

Reg

Reginald,

Since you have the TT 2007 print catalog handy ... check out page 38 ... Gardener's Delight, 30 seeds, 1.55 and page 40 ... Sugar Lump, 30 seeds, 1.85!

Bill

I have one chocolate cherry tomato plant. It is getting very tall but has only one bud on it. I have been picking the "suckers" off. Any idea what I need to do?

My Choco is huge. It has many flowers and fruit now but did not start that way. I've pinched very few suckers. The plant is like a wild thing overgrowing every other tomato.

I have one fruit looking ripe an it's soft. It's not dark. It's kind of red and green. I don't know when to pick it. I don't want it to go too long. It sort of looks like Noinwi's pic.