Cuore Antico di Aqui Terme Tomato Reviews

Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme (Cuore Antico di Aqui Terme). A family heirloom from Italy. Indeterminate. Mid-late season. The fruits are red, flattened hearts with facets—some are ribbed, some are not—having a bizarre, unusual shape. Very few seeds, dense, meaty, and delicious, weighing 300-500g (10-18 oz) and up to 1 kg (2.2 lbs).

Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme (Cuore Antico di Aqui Terme) — an excellent variety, highly productive, and beautiful. The fruits have an unusual shape, ranging from large ribbed hearts to pepper-shaped. Meaty, juicy, very tasty. There are few seeds, and they are mostly quite small.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Svetikk

I absolutely loved this variety! The fruits are large, flattened hearts. I looked up my notes:

Verrry!!! tasty!!! A rich tomato flavor with bright sweetness. Not dry, but extremely meaty. And drastically few seeds. I got just a handful of seeds out of two massive tomatoes.

The yield was average for me. But we had such an intense heatwave that it’s a miracle anything set fruit at all. Once the heat broke, it pumped out more tomatoes. So the potential is definitely there.

I really loved this variety. It completely buried me in tomatoes. The fruits are meaty and delicious, and they stay large all the way up to the top of the plant.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Hrizantema57

Talk about a true workhorse! Plant a couple of these bushes, and you won’t need anything else for your sauces and ketchups! The yield is absolutely insane, the fruits are giants, and yet the trusses didn’t bend or snap at all! Even though some of my trusses weighed over 3 kg (6.6 lbs). The fruits are pure meat, almost no seeds, beautiful unusual heart shapes, weighing 700-900 g (1.5 – 2 lbs) and more. Despite the heat, it set fruit from the very bottom all the way to the top.

I second all the positive reviews about this variety. Highly productive, tasty, massive trusses, almost no seeds, very “meaty”.

For me, this was one of the best varieties of the past season. The plants are tall, sturdy, and “thick-legged” (very thick main stems). The leaves are large and dark. Classic, delicious homegrown tomatoes, very large. Interesting fruit shape.

I can’t quite figure it out—what color is this variety supposed to be?

On 11/25/2021 at 18:14, Olga-70-KAZ said:
what color is this variety supposed to be?

Olya, it’s red.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Inna

On 11/25/2021 at 18:14, Olga-70-KAZ said:
I can’t quite figure it out—what color is this variety supposed to be?

A true, pure red.

On 11/25/2021 at 18:14, Olga-70-KAZ said:
I can’t quite figure it out—what color is this variety supposed to be?

Mine wasn’t entirely red, but rather a brick shade—red leaning towards orange. The fruits were very large and meaty. It wasn’t very productive for me, neither outdoors nor in the greenhouse, but we had such intense HEAT here that it’s a miracle tomatoes set fruit at all. A real furnace. My friend in Karaganda had it about 3-5 degrees cooler, and her Acqui Terme produced a massive harvest from the exact same seeds (I split the packet with her). The taste is quite ordinary—not bland, but not mind-blowing either. Not sure I’ll grow it again; usually, if a variety gives me a low yield, I’ll only keep it if the flavor is good enough to compensate for it.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Oksana Evgenievna

Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme.
I am so happy that every year varieties like this appear in my collection—they truly impress.

How could you not be impressed when huge “plums” weighing nearly a kilo (2.2 lbs) are hanging from the bushes in the greenhouse? Last season it was Aunt Swarlo’s Polish Plum, this year it’s Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme. They are similar types, but the differences are noticeable.

The fruits are large red plums of various shapes—flattened, chubby, slightly ribbed… basically, something for every taste! The flavor, by the way, is very, very good. The flesh is juicy with a predominant sweetness. The yield on these types of varieties always brings joy. I’d classify it as mid-late season, on a medium-tall plant. I think any tomato lover would enjoy growing such beauty.

I am absolutely thrilled with this variety! Highly productive, interestingly shaped, and just a delicious classic tomato. Flavor usually struggles in my greenhouse (it’s a cold and damp spot), but you can eat Ancient Heart plain, without any salt or seasonings. I really love the texture—dense, but not dry or cottony. Drastically few seeds; I had to gut 6 whole tomatoes just to get 3 seeds! Rumors about the skin being too delicate are greatly exaggerated; it transports and stores well.

Productive, stores well. But I didn’t like the taste at all—it was bland, completely lacked sweetness, and was too firm, almost crunchy. Plus, it’s prone to Blossom End Rot (BER). I have two greenhouses. In the polycarbonate one, almost everything got hit with BER, with rare exceptions. In the glass greenhouse, out of 25 plants, none got sick… except Acqui Terme. So I’m still debating whether to grow it again.

It was a powerful beast this year—highly productive, set every single truss despite the heat. No green shoulders, no blossom end rot, no hollow cavities inside. Not cottony, quite tasty.

Last year it was much more modest in both yield and flavor.

Based on this year’s performance, it’s an absolute lock for two spots in my garden next season. And that’s saying something!)

In 2022, I grew “Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme” for the first time in a plastic high tunnel. Planted seeds in mid-March. Picked them green in late August because the tomatoes in the greenhouse started spoiling and cracking from the drastic day/night temperature swings. They ripened indoors by the second week of September.

These two tomatoes hung on the same truss without snapping the stem.

I was expecting great flavor. Inside, it’s a bit dry, but the flesh has a grainy/watermelon-like texture. To me, it tasted a bit bland (though I attribute this to ripening them indoors off the vine). My mom said the texture was cottony. It’s a beautiful tomato, and besides these two massive ones, the plant had a couple more smaller ones. I pruned it to two stems. I will try growing it again to see if it improves…

I liked the variety, but I couldn’t quite tame it. The seedlings looked a bit wimpy, so when planting outdoors, I loaded up the planting hole with a ton of fertilizer. As a result, it went into heavy vegetative growth (too much nitrogen). I pruned it to 3 stems, and eventually, it settled down and pumped out some little monsters. The fruits on the upper trusses were smaller—I should have fed it again after the bottom ones formed.

The flavor is excellent, nicely sweet. My coworkers were so impressed they dug out seeds for themselves.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Natalya79

It turned out highly productive, loading up large fruits all the way up the vine. They got huge but were in no hurry to ripen; they only started turning red in the second half of August. The taste is good—sweet and juicy. I’ve seen descriptions saying it has hollow cavities inside. Mine didn’t have any. A good, meaty tomato that pleases both the eye and the salad bowl. The fruits are red.

The plant grew in a fairly bright spot, but not in blazing direct sun.

Cuore Antico di Aqui Terme (Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme)

One of the best varieties this season. Loved the taste, the fruit shape (beautiful irregular hearts), and the yield. Maturation time—mid-late season.

Seeds from Olya @olyaka. Thank you!

Poltava. Open ground (outdoors).

The plant was powerful right from the seedling stage. I grew it to 2 stems. The fruits are elongated hearts with a very characteristic shape. The fruit is dense and handles transport well, yet the skin isn’t tough. No hard cores inside. The flesh is buttery, juicy, not watery, with very few seeds. A classic tomato flavor—sweet with a touch of acidity, perfectly balanced.

Fruits were medium-sized for me.

I’m keeping it on my permanent grow list.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Valentina-11

The largest-fruited variety I’ve grown in my conditions. Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme amazes and impresses not only with its size but also with its yield—that’s what really hooked me; getting just two large fruits per plant is not my style!)

Highly productive and massive both in the greenhouse and outdoors. The last 2 photos are from last year in the open ground.

The fruits are a red-orange, brick color. They are meaty, without excess liquid, and have very few seeds. The maximum weight in my garden was a little over 800 g (1.7 lbs).

I wouldn’t say the taste is super unique—it’s not sour, just a good solid tomato flavor. Perfect for juices and sauces.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Lelikovna

Classic tomato flavor, tasty, juicy, meaty, but without any real standout “wow” factor. The fruits had hollow cavities inside.

Grown in a greenhouse. My first time trying this variety.

I am planting this variety for the second time. Very large, meaty, and mine had no hollow cavities at all.

On 8/26/2025 at 15:30, Olga said:
I am planting this variety for the second time. Very large, meaty, and mine had no hollow cavities at all.

The misshapen ones didn’t have hollow cavities for me either. But the perfect heart-shaped ones did—mostly the larger ones; the smaller ones were solid.