Quick Summary of Chocolate Cherry
- 🌍 Origin: A very popular dark cherry tomato. In this forum thread, Russian growers compare different strains circulating under this name, noting distinct differences from the famous Black Cherry.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), incredibly vigorous, and often described as a “monster” in the greenhouse. It sets fruit continuously until the first frosts. Growers recommend tying it securely, as it easily reaches the greenhouse roof.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Round cherries (some variations produce slightly pear-shaped fruits) with a beautiful milk-chocolate color. The average weight is 15–20 g (0.5–0.7 oz). Unlike Black Cherry (which has complex, multi-branching trusses), the true Chocolate Cherry is noted for having simple trusses with alternating fruits.
- 👅 Flavor: Rated 5 out of 5 by almost all growers. It features a bright acidity with wine undertones that instantly transitions into a sweet, chocolatey aftertaste.
- 🛡️ Disease Resistance: Extremely resilient. Growers report it is one of the last to succumb to Late Blight (Phytophthora), and can even recover and continue fruiting if treated properly.
Seeds are from Lenochka Leo Leo. Grew it outdoors (open ground). A magnificent variety. Indeterminate, very vigorous, set fruit right up until frost. It was the very last one to get hit by Late Blight. After a set of measures (removing diseased fruits and leaves, spraying with metronidazole) and the arrival of dry weather, it continued to grow and bear fruit.
A real beauty, the fruits are larger than other cherries, the color looks somewhat like milk chocolate. Taste is 5+
In the last photo, there are other cherries for comparison.
Here is what my Chocolate-Cherry looked like (also from Lenochka):
Mine also bravely withstood the Late Blight.
Girls, I am so glad you liked it! 🌺 And thank you for growing it! 🎉 I also grew them this year, and they are still setting fruit 😋
Lenochka, how wonderful… 👍
Lenochka, your cherries have now become my favorites 😘. A must plant!!!!!!!! IMHO.
I also grew these cherries from Lenochka-Leo, very tasty, perfect for canning and just eating right off the bush – absolutely delicious… they set fruit for a long time, the trusses are abundant… 👍
I had exactly the same Black Cherry, I wonder, is this the same variety or are there differences between them?
o-lya-lya wrote:
I had exactly the same Black Cherry, I wonder, is this the same variety or are there differences between them?
Olya, I also grew Black Cherry, I think it’s the exact same variety. 😉
Tanya, you speak the truth, I see no differences at all. Early, super productive, tasty, long-fruiting, disease-free, but the bush was simply a monster in the greenhouse, I think its growth is absolutely unlimited. 😲
😳
o-lya-lya wrote:
I had exactly the same Black Cherry, I wonder, is this the same variety or are there differences between them?
I wanted to ask the exact same thing! 😄 Looks like a twin…
Tatiyanka1 wrote:
Feels like they were picked from the same bush… 😳
No, the third one (on the right) is smaller. And the color is brighter. The far left one has a purplish tint. And it’s larger. The bushes themselves are shorter for the third one. In terms of taste, the third one is less sweet than the others.
…I won’t argue… but to me, that’s nitpicking (and that’s exactly why we have thousands of varieties—one has a redder side, another has a taller bush….) 😄
Alena! Thanks for the seeds! 🌺 We will spread Elena’s worthy varieties here in the Urals.
Tatiyanka! In your photo, I see 18 cherries weighing 111 grams, am I understanding this correctly? So the average weight of one fruit is 6.2 grams? Where did you grow it and how many stems? Did you prune (sucker) it?
Did everyone get such tiny chocolate babies (even though they are considered larger than other cherry varieties)? What maturity time do you classify it as? Are the seedlings prone to stretching? Do the fruits crack outdoors after rain?
Lenochka leo leo1! Is this average fruit weight genetic? Is it the same in your more favorable conditions?
I wonder if there is a way to increase the weight of cherry fruits to at least 10g (0.35 oz). If we leave only 3 stems and pinch the last bud on each truss (like we do with regular tomatoes), will there be an effect? Whoever has tried this, share your experience!
Zulfiya, I also had seeds from Lenochka. But mine weighed 15-20g (0.5–0.7 oz). I grew it to two stems. They grew outdoors in open ground.
Zulenka, the plant is powerful, suckers push out aggressively, the trusses are gorgeous; the first ones might be simpler with up to 15 fruits, but then there are more. For me, they turned out to be mid-late season. I will definitely start the seeds for seedlings in mid-February. They also don’t ripen very quickly or all at once, but rather in sequence. The weight is about 10 grams, but no more than 15 grams (0.5 oz).
o-lya-lya wrote:
I had exactly the same Black Cherry, I wonder, is this the same variety or are there differences between them?
I didn’t grow Chocolate Cherry, but I did grow Black Cherry, and for myself, I saw a difference, and in my opinion, a rather significant one: in the structure of the truss. Black Cherry has a complex (multi-branching) truss structure, while Chocolate Cherry has a simple truss with alternating fruit arrangement.
I’ll try to insert pictures. Forgive me for using someone’s photos from the forum 😳
This year my trusses are not very abundant (they used to be much more voluminous), but the fruits are large, around 20 grams (0.7 oz). As always, it’s early-ripening – the photo is from July 4th, and the ones outdoors are almost ready too.
A specific feature of this year is that the bushes are not very healthy; on 2 out of 3, the tips of the leaves periodically turn yellow, and I cut them off. It’s not related to nutrition, apparently a reaction to the cold.
And I have different chocolate cherries. The bush is sturdy, thick, and strong. Up to one and a half meters (5 ft). It set a truss after every leaf, then every 2 leaves. It looks like Medovaya Kaplya (Honey Drop), only a different color, and I liked the taste, they are sweet. Seeds from Natasha-Yaroslavna.
Chocolate Cherry is on the left on the little plate.
I really liked it 👍! Grew it in 2015 outdoors. Super sweet, high yield, and not prone to diseases at all. The trusses are large. The seeds were from the forum.
Elena 62 wrote:
And I have different chocolate cherries. The bush is sturdy, thick, and strong. Up to one and a half meters. It set a truss after every leaf, then every 2 leaves. It looks like Medovaya Kaplya (Honey Drop), only a different color…
Yes, exactly, Lenochka – for me it’s a vigorous indeterminate, highly productive, with a long fruiting period… In mid-September, I lowered the upper vines onto a wire stretched above, and they were still blooming and fruiting abundantly. Sweet, dense, great in marinades (pickling) 😋
I planted the chocolate cherry-pears from Yaroslavna in 2014. Grew them outdoors in open ground. They were productive, tasty, and sweet. Great for fresh eating and whole-fruit canning.
Judging by the photo, it looks exactly like Sweet Chocolate Bunch (Sladkaya Shokoladnaya Grozd), and not Black Cherry.
It has a pinker hue and is sweeter than Black Cherry. I grew both varieties this year.
For me this year, Chocolate Cherry won in the nominations for “best taste” and “a bucket per bush”. It grew in a polycarbonate greenhouse in the corner. At first, I strictly pruned it to 3 stems, but then it just grew however it wanted. I was only tying it up at the roof 😄. Quite large. It turned out to be the highest-yielding cherry tomato. I harvested a 5-liter bucket three times. First time I’ve ever had such a yield from cherry tomatoes!
The taste is very good. At first, a tartness with a wine flavor, followed immediately by a sweet, truly chocolatey aftertaste. Very healthy. I removed it from the greenhouse last of all. The last trusses hung like grape clusters and were even larger than at the beginning of the season.
