Sofia’s Sweet Caramel Tomato Grower Reviews & Photos

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🍅 Quick take: Sofia’s Sweet Caramel (Sladkaya Karamel Sofii) is an indeterminate, mid-early to mid-season bicolor heart bred by Sofia Saakova. Most of the 11 growers here praise its sweet flavor and looks. The main caveats are soft fruit in extreme heat and occasional segregation into Temptation. Full summary ↓

Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-6 Experience)

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Irina Volga (Irina) ⭐ Pro Grower (902 posts)
📍 Volgograd, Russia (USDA Zone 6)

Indeterminate, mid-early. The fruits are elongated hearts with a little beak, 5-10.5 oz (150-300 g), with a very beautiful pattern. They are yellow-orange with red stripes and nice anthocyanin (antho) splashing. The flesh is bicolor, absolutely delicious and very sweet.

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Irina Volga (1)

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Irina Volga (Irina) ⭐ Pro Grower (902 posts)
📍 Volgograd, Russia (USDA Zone 6)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Irina Volga (2)
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Hrizantema57 (Lyudmila) ⭐ Pro Grower (13,401 posts)
📍 Moscow Region, Russia (USDA Zone 4)

A variety bred by Sofia Saakova. In 2024 it was one of the first of my indeterminate varieties to ripen. The plant is light-colored. The tomatoes are beautiful and yummy.

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Hrizantema57 (1)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Hrizantema57 (2)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Hrizantema57 (3)

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Murka (Masha) ⭐ Pro Grower (9,357 posts)
📍 Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia (USDA Zone 4)

Bred by Sofia Saakova. A stunning variety and one of my absolute favorites: a bicolor with anthocyanin, incredibly delicious and very, very sweet. The plant is slender, closer to mid-season.

Edited November 16, 2025 by Murka

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Murka (1)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Murka (2)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Murka (3)

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Svetikk (Svetlana) ⭐ Pro Grower (29,344 posts)
📍 Moscow Region, Russia (USDA Zone 4)

Sofia’s Sweet Caramel. An excellent variety, and it’s now on my permanent grow list! Beautiful, productive and very tasty. Indeterminate; I grew it in the greenhouse pruned to 3 stems.

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Svetikk (1)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Svetikk (2)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Svetikk (3)

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Irina193 (Irina) ⭐ Pro Grower (3,405 posts)
📍 Krasnodar, Southern Russia (USDA Zone 7)

I agree, it’s very beautiful, tasty and quite productive. BUT in our extreme heat it got very soft. It had no shelf life at all, maybe 24 hours at most. If only it were firmer, it would be priceless. Or if our summers were a little cooler. I might still grow it again someday. By the way, the Rebel Starfighter series is also very weak in this regard for us.

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sofochkamai (Svetlana) ⭐ Pro Grower (4,293 posts)
📍 Yekaterinburg, Ural Region (USDA Zone 3)

An excellent variety and my discovery of the year! Sweet, productive and just stunning. It’s definitely going on my permanent grow list!

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by sofochkamai (1)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by sofochkamai (2)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by sofochkamai (3)

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tomatinka (Vera) ⭐ Pro Grower (14,911 posts)
📍 Tyumen Region, Siberia (USDA Zone 3)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomatoes, photo posted by tomatinka
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Ninulia (Nina) ⭐ Pro Grower (39,530 posts)
📍 Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia (USDA Zone 4)

I didn’t like it! The tomatoes aren’t large, and there aren’t many of them on the plant either. The plant itself is flimsy and right now it looks like nothing at all! I’m growing 2 plants and both are like this!

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Lana_s_Kavkaza (Svetlana) ⭐ Pro Grower (19,262 posts)
📍 Pyatigorsk, Southern Russia (USDA Zone 6)

I grew it again from my own seeds, and again it got hit by frost. I probably need to sow it later and transplant it closer to May. I put the plants out in mid-April and they were hit by frosts and heavy downpours. The plants were vine-like; I grew them with several stems and they set fruit well. They made it all the way to autumn. The flesh is bicolor, absolutely delicious and very sweet.

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Svetikk (Svetlana) ⭐ Pro Grower (29,344 posts)
📍 Moscow Region, Russia (USDA Zone 4)

Sofia’s Sweet Caramel.

I grew it again from my own saved seeds, with no segregation or off-types this time. (The year before, one plant did segregate, giving red hearts with barely noticeable stripes, but it was still productive and tasty.)

One plant grew in the greenhouse with two stems. The second grew outdoors in a large pot near the gazebo, and the fruits in the pot were especially large, up to 13.4 oz (380 g)!

An excellent variety: tasty, sweet, beautiful, productive. I still have a few fruits sitting in storage right now (November 15).

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Svetikk (4)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Svetikk (5)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Svetikk (6)

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Yuliya Antsifrova (Yuliya) 🌱 Member (191 posts)
📍 Kaluga Region, Russia (USDA Zone 4)

My version of this variety turned out as two different variants. I grew two plants. One had anthocyanin and the other didn’t. On both, the shape was more of a pepper-shaped heart than the beaked hearts, and the beaks pointed to the side. The one without anthocyanin tasted completely uninteresting, and I didn’t even bother to photograph it. Both plants were unproductive, with few fruits, and the fruits weren’t large: about 5 oz (150 g) on average on both.

The second version, also closer to pepper-shaped, had a lot of anthocyanin, even though the plant didn’t grow in direct sun, just in good light alongside all my other oranges and bicolors. I wasn’t even expecting anthocyanin! The anthocyanin variant was more interesting in taste: sweetish, not amazing, but very decent.

So I never got to experience the breeder’s true vision. Unfortunately, all I got were segregations/off-types.

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Yuliya Antsifrova (1)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Yuliya Antsifrova (2)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo posted by Yuliya Antsifrova (3)

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CUCSA (Larisa) ⭐ Pro Grower (7,216 posts)
📍 Lipetsk, Russia (USDA Zone 5)

Quote from Svetikk:
Sofia’s Sweet Caramel. I grew it again from my own saved seeds, with no segregation or off-types this time… An excellent variety: tasty, sweet, beautiful, productive. I still have a few fruits sitting in storage right now (November 15).

I don’t see any anthocyanin in your photos. Sofia wrote on her website: “There is a possibility of Sofia’s Sweet Caramel segregating into Temptation (Iskushenie).”

Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo from Svetikk's post (1)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo from Svetikk's post (2)
Sofia's Sweet Caramel tomato, photo from Svetikk's post (3)

Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage

  • 🌿 Plant: Indeterminate, mid-early to mid-season, bred by Sofia Saakova. Growers describe a slender, vine-like plmnat. Hrizantema57 had it among her first indeterminates to ripen in 2024, and Svetikk grew it in a greenhouse with 2-3 stems and outdoors in a large pot.
  • 🍅 Fruit: Elongated hearts with a little beak, yellow-orange with red stripes and anthocyanin (“antho”) splashing, with bicolor flesh. Irina Volga reports 5-10.5 oz (150-300 g), and Svetikk’s pot-grown plant gave fruits up to 13.4 oz (380 g).
  • 👅 Taste: Most growers call it very sweet and delicious, and one named it her discovery of the year. Not everyone agrees: Ninulia didn’t like it (not large, few fruits, a flimsy plant), and Yuliya’s off-types were unproductive, with one tasting uninteresting.
  • 🌡️ Heat, Frost & Storage: In extreme heat in Krasnodar the fruits got very soft and lasted 24 hours at most (Irina193), while Svetikk still had fruits in storage on November 15. Lana_s_Kavkaza’s plants were hit by frost and downpours after a mid-April transplant, and she thinks sowing later and transplanting closer to May would work better.
  • 🧬 Genetics: CUCSA quotes Sofia’s website saying the variety may segregate into Temptation (Iskushenie). Yuliya got only off-types (pepper-shaped fruits, with and without anthocyanin). Svetikk had one segregating plant the year before (red hearts with barely visible stripes) but none from her saved seed this time.
  • 🌎 Who Reviewed It: 11 growers in Russia. Most are in USDA Zones 3-4 (Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaluga regions, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen), with winters similar to northern states like Minnesota, Wisconsin or Maine. A few are in Zones 5-7 (Lipetsk, Volgograd, Pyatigorsk, Krasnodar). Zones are approximate, based on each grower’s region.
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