Quick Summary of Purple Sugar (Purpurnyy Sakharnyy)
- 🌍 Origin: A commercial variety sold in Russia by the “Dom Semyan” (House of Seeds) company. The packet claims it is an “original variety native to Latin America,” but it appears to be a ribbed dark variety highly prone to fasciation. The name translates to “Purple Sugar”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. Growers universally describe the plant habit as awful: it grows into a massive, overly vigorous, uncontrollable “baobab tree” that produces endless amounts of suckers (even out of the leaf nodes).
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Dark purple, deeply ribbed/pleated fruits. However, the plant produces huge amounts of “megablooms” (fasciated flowers), resulting in highly deformed, ugly fruits. Despite the large appearance on the seed packet, actual yields are very low, and fruits often turn out much smaller than expected (around 180-220g / 6-7.7 oz).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: A complete disappointment. Growers describe the taste as “washed-out,” “bland,” and “watery”—absolutely not “sugary” as the name implies. Furthermore, the fruits overripen and turn to mush very quickly on the vine.
- ⚠️ Verdict: Overwhelmingly negative reviews. Most growers strongly advise against wasting greenhouse space on this variety.
Probably many of you have seen the beautiful picture from “Dom Semyan” (House of Seeds) company.
With this description:
“An original variety native to Latin America. Mid-season (120-130 days from germination). Intended for greenhouse growing. The plant is indeterminate, vigorous… Fruits are large, oblate, consisting of several segments, green-purple at biological ripeness, dark purple at technical ripeness. The flesh is sugary, sweet, dark red on the cross-section, with few seeds. The variety is distinguished by a concentrated, rich taste and aroma.”
The bushes do indeed grow indeterminate, but they grow like indeterminate cherry tomatoes—very long, spindly vines with a massive amount of suckers that are impossible to keep track of. Fruit set is poor. The tomatoes look somewhat like the picture, but weight-wise they turned out to be not large at all. The taste… is washed-out/bland and absolutely not sugary.
There are many megablooms (fasciated flowers), which can result in highly deformed, ugly fruits. This variety turned out to be exceptionally unsuccessful for me.
My Purple Sugar… Bushes of medium vigor. It becomes heavily overgrown with suckers. Average yield, visually cute… And that’s where all the good things end 🤷♀️.
There is no taste whatsoever, and it overripens very quickly. Average weight 180-220g (6-7.7 oz). I will never plant it again.
I want to specially note that this is an outstandingly bad tomato! A massive, overly vigorous bush. Suckers grow by the dozens, even right out of the leaf nodes! The tomatoes are deformed freaks. Late ripening. I waited and waited for them to ripen, thinking: “I have to try it!”
It is the most tasteless tomato of my life. Horrible. I deeply regret the greenhouse space and time wasted on it. Never plant this variety anywhere!
I also had a lot of megablooms, and the tomatoes were watery. Here are my Purple Sugars.
I thought I was the only one growing something like this… Last year I couldn’t understand it at all. It grew into a baobab tree, tortured me with endless suckers, and gave me peas instead of the promised large tomatoes.
I repeated it this year. Last summer was very successful for our tomatoes, so I thought my own crooked hands were to blame. This year it’s the exact same story. If only there were a lot of tomatoes on the bush, but there are very few. I love pleated/ribbed tomatoes, I bought the seeds and was so happy. It’s bad that they overripen so quickly. Taste-wise, mine actually turned out pretty tasty. I like the shape. But the behavior of the bush is extremely obnoxious, and there are very few fruits. 🤦♀️
Drosera wrote:
There are many megablooms, which can result in highly deformed, ugly fruits. This variety turned out to be exceptionally unsuccessful for me.
Dear Ekaterina, personally I don’t understand many people—why all this novelty nonsense/showing off? Shouldn’t you grow tomatoes that bring joy in canning and on the table with their taste and color? Why grow intentionally fasciated/deformed fruits? Forgive me, I’m just… old school. 🎩
It looks so much like Tim’s Black Ruffles. An exact copy. And that Tim variety is just as useless.
Fasciation happens anyway because of the microclimate. If you properly analyze… the growing year.
MADanilich wrote:
Dear Ekaterina, personally I don’t understand many people…
Andrey, “Ekaterinburg” written under Sveta’s avatar is the name of her city, not her name! 🤫
[Translator’s note: The user mistook the city of Ekaterinburg in Drosera’s profile for the female name Ekaterina]
MADanilich wrote:
Dear Ekaterina… why all this novelty nonsense?
Dear Andrey. I don’t just grow the successful, “good” varieties; I always try to grow something new. There were no reviews for this variety yet, but that doesn’t mean I’ll continue to grow a variety I didn’t like.
And yes. No one has ever called me Ekaterina before 😛