📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Gigantskaya Roza (Giant Rose)
- 🌍 Origin: A commercial variety from the Russian seed market. The name translates to “Giant Rose”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate, stout “tree-type” bush. It has thick, strong main stems and grows to about 3-3.3 ft (90-100 cm) tall. Highly vigorous and disease-resistant.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Stunningly beautiful! Round beefsteaks that ripen to a raspberry pink/red color with golden-orange stripes. Large size, often reaching 12-14 oz (350-400 g).
- 👅 Flavor: While commercial seed packets claim it has “high taste qualities,” forum growers strongly disagree. It is widely reported to be dry, mealy, and lacking sweetness or juice.
- 📈 Growing Traits: Bred for excellent shelf life and shipping durability, which likely explains the firm, mealy texture.
Seed packet description: A mid-season variety, stands out for its disease resistance, better keeping qualities, and shelf life/shipping ability compared to other pink-fruited varieties. The bush is a stout tree-type, 3-3.3 ft (90-100 cm) tall. The fruits have an original, very beautiful coloring: raspberry pink with orange stripes, round, large, weighing up to 12-14 oz (350-400 g), meaty, with high taste and dietary qualities. The variety is perfectly suited for fresh eating, salads, and canning.
Gigantskaya Roza looked absolutely identical to the description on the outside, but… it was completely tasteless. Not juicy and not sweet. Did it lack potassium? I don’t know. The flesh was…. mealy, I guess. But it’s a beautiful, vigorous bush, and the little tomatoes are very festive, slightly striped, turning red with golden stripes as they ripen.
I grew this variety last year too… and my impression is exactly the same. Yes, it has a beautiful appearance, but the taste is absolutely terrible… it’s a real pity..
In her post, Olga wonders if her tasteless, mealy tomatoes were caused by a lack of potassium. While a severe potassium deficiency can cause uneven ripening and poor flavor, the real culprit here is right in the seed packet description: “stands out for better keeping qualities and shipping ability.”
To make a tomato survive long shipping routes and sit on a shelf for weeks, breeders often select for genes that make the cell walls extremely firm. In the home garden, these varieties frequently end up having a dry, “mealy” texture and lack the juicy acidity and sweetness we expect from an heirloom. In the US heirloom community, a beautiful but terribly tasting tomato like this is often jokingly called a “spitter” (because you want to spit it out)!
