Quick Summary of Chesnovy (Reisetomate / Traveler’s Tomato)
- 🌍 Origin: A world-famous novelty variety. Known internationally as Reisetomate (German for Traveler’s Tomato). In Eastern Europe, it is often called Chesnovy (Garlic Tomato), Tomato-Brain, or even Tourist’s Breakfast.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate and incredibly vigorous. It produces a massive amount of suckers and can easily reach 2 meters (6.5 ft) to an astonishing 4 meters (13 ft) in a greenhouse. Very disease-resistant and hardy.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Highly unusual, deeply fused red tomatoes that look like a cluster of cherry tomatoes merged together, or a brain. You can literally tear off individual “lobes” to eat without needing a knife. Maximum weight is around 250 g (8.8 oz).
- 👅 Flavor & Uses: Highly controversial! Some growers find it sour, bland, or difficult to process for canning. Others love its juicy, tart, and traditional tomato flavor. Pro Tip: Let it fully ripen or even slightly overripen on the vine to develop its sweetness.
- 🎯 Verdict: It is the ultimate “toy” or novelty tomato. Grown more for its shock value, fun shape, and conversation-starting appearance than for gourmet culinary use.
I planted Chesnovy (Garlic tomato) this year. The bush is over a meter (3.3 ft) tall. It set a lot of fruit. Productive, fruits have an interesting shape. And that’s where its advantages end. The taste is nothing; I didn’t like it. And they are so clumsy/awkward—you can’t slice them normally, nor can you stuff them into a canning jar… Well, maybe just for juice. Which is exactly where I sent them. But for juice, there are much tastier varieties. I won’t grow it again.
By the way, a fasciated blossom (megabloom) produced an absolute monster of a tomato.
Edited January 29, 2015 by Drosera
Vera, I planted this one too. Only mine was from Popenko and was called Reisetometer. I didn’t really like it either, even though it is productive. I’m not planting it this year.
Reisetomat – variety (mine is from D. Gusev).
A highly pronounced indeterminate, pushes out a lot of suckers. In the greenhouse, trained to three stems, it grew to about 4 meters (13 ft) long! In open ground outdoors, the height was 70 cm (2.3 ft), I pruned the suckers lightly. It’s a very large bush, not prone to diseases, very resilient.
The bright red fruits look like individual cherry tomatoes fused together. They also call it garlic, garlic-tomato, tomato-brain, or traveler’s tomato. You can break the fruit apart almost entirely into separate pieces. The taste is ordinary, aromatic, with a lot of juice. Yield is good; the first fruits in the greenhouse ripened in early July, and I picked the last ones today. I might plant it next year.
Edited November 8, 2013 by Pomidoroved
What can be added about this variety… interesting, unusual, unique… In the greenhouse, it fruited until autumn… everyone was curious—what kind of “toys” are hanging on the branches? 🙂 The bushes (I had 2 of them) grew to the very top of the greenhouse, I didn’t limit their vertical growth—just watched them… All the fruits ripened on the vine…
And I am absolutely delighted with this tomato variety! I got it just for fun, for its bizarre shape, from A. Voronina. But when they ripened, I was extremely surprised to find that they are not bad at all in taste: the flesh is soft, very juicy, with a rich flavor and a slight tartness.
The bush was a powerful indeterminate, I trained it to 4 stems, but still had to top it at the height of the greenhouse roof (2 m / 6.5 ft). I harvested 3.8 kg (8.4 lbs) from the bush, with a maximum fruit weight of 250 g (8.8 oz).
By the way, none of the official names for this tomato stuck in my house… but someone once threw out the name “Tourist’s Breakfast”, and it stuck permanently!
Here in Europe, the large seed company Kiepenkerl sells this variety with a note stating that it is originally from Russia. Just adding to the question about the origin of the variety.
I liked Reisetomate. The bushes are powerful, they set a lot of fruit. The taste is traditional tomato with a lean towards sweetness. The tomatoes are very juicy and tender. The fruits are bizarre. It’s fun to pick out the most “ideal” ones—the ones that easily separate into individual teardrop-shaped segments. You just break them apart right into the salad bowl.
I grew the “Garlic” (Chesnovy) tomato this year. Planted 2 bushes, trained each to 2 stems. You could easily do 4. The bush is not excessively aggressive, but tall; mine reached 1.8m (6 ft). The yield is average. I knew that the taste of this variety was questionable, but I was interested in the shape. And the shape turned out to be wonderful!)) The tomatoes are red and ripened perfectly on the bush until late autumn.
This variety took first place for me as the most tasteless tomato of the 2022 season! It is the most inconvenient to process because of its shape, the most incredibly sour, but absolutely the most beautiful of them all! I will definitely repeat it again)))
By the way, when the tomatoes sit on the counter or hang on the vine a little longer and approach almost over-ripeness, they develop a normal tomato taste with a distinct tartness. It’s a “toy” variety. I really liked it) I planted seeds from Siberian Garden.
