Quick Summary of Brown Sugar (Sakhar Korichnevyi)
- 🌍 Origin & Marketing: A dark/brown Russian commercial variety, famously sold by the SeDek seed company. The packet description makes wild marketing claims, calling it a “rejuvenating apple” with anti-cancer and anti-heart-attack properties. The name translates to “Brown Sugar”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Officially listed as an indeterminate. However, due to seed instability from SeDek, growers sometimes receive off-type seeds that “top themselves” (act as determinates) and stop growing at around 50 cm (20 inches).
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Dark brownish-red fruits. The true strain produces medium-to-large round globes, sometimes slightly flattened on top.
- ⏳ Storage Warning: Like many dark/black heirloom tomatoes, it has a very short shelf life. They must be eaten soon after harvesting, as they do not store well.
- 👅 Flavor Debate: Highly polarizing! While some growers find it wonderfully sweet and rich (rivaling bicolors and other black tomatoes), others report it as watery, bland, or slightly tart—completely contradicting the word “Sugar” in its name. It often requires intense late-summer heat to unlock its true sweetness.
🍅 Have you grown this variety? Scroll down to add your review and photos in the comments below!
Real Grower Reviews & Photos
Taste is a 5 out of 5. Yield is average. The fruits are very uniform – beautiful round globes. I will definitely plant it again.
Mine looked similar to Kumato…
But the Brown Sugar in my seed packet were large and flattened (oblate)…
Mine look exactly like the picture on the packet. I need to find the packet. I remember the germination rate of the seeds was very poor. I specifically wanted to grow them because of their similarity to Kumato.
Minuses: A bit bland – there is sugar, but there is absolutely no acidity to balance it.
Pluses: Large-fruited, productive.
Tall plant, mid-late season ripening.
I planted Brown Sugar after reading very good reviews about it, saying that it was very sweet and tasty. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the taste. It was somewhat watery, just an ordinary tomato taste, even with a bit of tartness. Growing right next to it was Medovyi Spas (Honey Salvation), which I also planted for the first time, and it became the favorite of the season. Black Elephant (Chernyi Slon) was also much tastier (I’m mentioning this regarding growing conditions, they all grew right next to each other).
I grew it in a greenhouse, pruned to two stems, and didn’t thin the trusses. It was of medium height, and the yield was good. But the taste let me down. We decided not to plant it anymore. Seeds were from SeDek.
I planted Brown Sugar outdoors in open ground, and it completely failed for me. The bush grew, but there were no tomatoes on it.
A meter away grew Amethyst, which had a great yield. So now I don’t want to plant Brown Sugar anymore. Also, my White Sugar in the greenhouse failed this year, so now I don’t want any “sugars” at all… 😃
Mine were also round globes, just large ones very slightly flattened on top.
And I will add: they stored very poorly. They didn’t last long at all after picking.
Sorry for the photo quality. This is how people get tricked by the variety description on the packet.
I planted Brown Sugar from SeDek. I fell for the description – tomatoes are meaty and sweet, and supposedly very healthy:
“Value of the variety: one of the best salad varieties, possessing high medical anti-cancer and anti-heart-attack properties, preventing aging and belonging to the category of ‘rejuvenating apples'”
In my conditions – the yield of this variety was average, the taste of the fruits was absolutely bland, completely devoid of any sweetness.
I planted it in ancient times, when brown/black tomatoes were in huge deficit, probably 5-6-7 years ago. Nothing good grew out of it – there were a few tomatoes on the bush, of questionable appearance and taste (it tasted like bad yellow varieties… there are delicious yellow tomatoes, and then there are… these kinds… )
In my climate, it was very late, so the yield was low, but the taste was just as good as bicolors and other black tomatoes, quite rich with a touch of sweetness. I want to repeat it this year, but I haven’t fully decided yet.
I planted this variety in 2012 from the SeDek company. The yield was good. It set fruit on all trusses, no skipped blossoms. The taste turned out to be slightly tart, not very sweet. But I had very little tomato-growing experience back then 😳, only two years. So the issue might be the variety, or it might just be my lack of skill at the time.
I planted Brown Sugar about three years ago. I really liked it. My dad was generally very conservative regarding food habits and would not eat colored tomatoes, only the usual red ones. We barely convinced him to try it. After trying Brown Sugar, it was the only one he would eat.
In the fall, out of greed, I bought two packets of seeds. Both from SeDek, but they turned out to be from different batches. I planted 2 bushes from each packet. From the first one, 1 seed germinated; from the second, both did.
Today I picked the first tomato from the first bush. It did not grow into “sugar” at all. The bush topped itself (acted as a determinate). It grew to 50 cm (20 inches) and completely stopped. The ones from the other packet are still green, waiting.
And the tomato itself. Definitely not sugar, but it turned out to be tasty nonetheless.
Natalya said:
Today I picked the first tomato from the first bush. It did not grow into “sugar” at all.
I also planted this variety in the past. For me, it wasn’t pure “sugar” either, but it was tasty-sweetish. It was a short indeterminate, but not a determinate.
For me, the very first tomatoes of the season never reveal their full flavor, because they set and swell in cool weather. But closer to September, the full flavor profile finally shows up.
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