The 4th annual KCTT Tomato Tasting is in the books and this was definitely our biggest turnout yet! We had around 75 people tasting over 60 varieties of tomatoes of every size, shape, color and flavor that you can imagine.
We had some awesome new additions to the tasting this year with Kurlbaum and Bear Creek Farms contributing great varieties to the tasting. We also had Local Pig’s delicious bacon as stars of the BLT’s.
The Kurlbaum’s brought their very cool Tomato Truck.
Matt Kafka cooked up the delicious bourbon jalapeno bacon from Local Pig.
Sourdough bread,lettuce, and plenty of condiments made the Bearcreek tomatoes and Local Pig Bacon into awesome BLT’s.
My grandparents, Jim and Dorothy, made the trip for the tasting this year and enjoyed a BLT breakfast.
More tomato varieties than you can shake a stick at! We had over 60 types!
Keith Mueller brought some of his awesome trial varieties especially those from the apricot fleshed lines.
Rod McBride brought some great varieties and took some excellent photographs.
My good friends Todd and Julie of TomatoTown brought a BUNCH of varieties and helped us out so much! Make sure to check out Julie’s awesome art at the Latte Land on State Line.
A gratuitous shot of bacon just because it was sooooo delicious!
No one went away hungry! This young man tackled the BLT station with gusto, but finally filled his belly!
We gave away some great door prizes including some seed packs from Wintersown.org.
For the second year in a row, we had our tasters vote for their favorite varieties. Each taster was given 5 votes to use as they wished. Here are the results:
Purple Haze 15
Sungold 14
Chocolate Stripes 12
Momotaro 12
Carbon 8
Brandywine Cowlick 7
Dr. Wyche’s Yellow 7
P&J Ellis 7
Brandywine Sudduth’s 6
Goose Creek 6
Italian Heirloom 6
Mule Team 6
Solar Flare 6
Arkansas Traveler 5
Bear Creek 5
Burraker’s Favorite 5
Cherokee Purple 5
Juane Flame 5
Virginia Sweet 5
Black Cherry 4
Grandma Viney’s Yellow & Pink 4
Indigo Rose 4
Absinthe 3
Belmont 3
Carolina Gold 3
Surprise 3
Barlow Jap 2
Beefsteak Cherry 2
Kimberly 2
Midnight in Moscow 2
Orange Heart 2
Paul Robeson 2
Yellow Moon 2
Aunt Lou’s underground Railroad 1
Bolseno F1 1
Dr. Lyle 1
Great White 1
Pink Brandywine 1
Yoder’s German Yellow 1
I found it very interesting that the top three varieties are cherry/smaller tomatoes. Purple Haze is simply incredible…just wish that seeds were easy to come by. They are the beluga caviar of the tomato world! I think the larger beefsteaks and brandywines scored lower because the samples were not the best due to the extreme weather this year. I also found it interesting that there were 39 varieties that got at least one vote. We had about 40 types of named tomatoes (the other 20 or so were numbered experimental types). It’s great that there is a person for every tomato and a tomato for every palette!
We’ll host our 5th annual Tomato Tasting in 2013! Thanks so much for making this year’s tasting a tremendous success.
KC Tomato Times Blog 