Quick Summary of Sofia’s Sweet Caramel (Sladkaya Karamel Sofii)
- 🌍 Origin: A stunning modern variety developed by Russian breeder Sofia Saakova.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall vining). It has a slender, vine-like bush (typical of oxheart varieties) and ranges from mid-early to mid-season. It performs well in greenhouses, outdoors, and even in large containers.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Truly breathtaking aesthetics. The fruits are elongated hearts with a distinct “beak” (pointed blossom end), weighing 150-380 g (5-13 oz). They are beautiful bicolors—yellow-orange with red stripes—topped with dark purple/black anthocyanin (antho) splashing on the shoulders.
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: The flesh is marbled bicolor. Growers unanimously praise it as incredibly sweet, delicious, and fruity.
- ⚠️ Grower’s Notes & Genetics: There are two important caveats. First, in extreme heat, the fruits can become very soft and have almost zero shelf life. Second, the genetics are currently somewhat unstable (prone to segregation). Some growers report getting off-types without anthocyanin, different shapes, or segregations that revert to a sister line called “Temptation” (Iskushenie).
Indeterminate. Mid-early. Fruits are in the shape of an elongated heart with a little beak, weighing 150-300g (5-10.5 oz) with a very beautiful pattern. They are yellow-orange with red stripes and good anthocyanin (antho) splashing. The flesh is bicolor, absolutely delicious, and very sweet.
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A variety bred by Sofia Saakova. In 2024, it ripened as one of the very first among my indeterminate varieties; the bush is light-colored. The tomatoes are beautiful and yummy.
Bred by Sofia Saakova, a stunning variety, one of my absolute, absolute favorites. A bicolor with anthocyanin, incredibly delicious, the sweetest. The bush is slender, closer to mid-season.
Edited November 16, 2025 by Murka
Sofia’s Sweet Caramel. Excellent variety, it’s on my permanent grow list now! Beautiful, productive, very tasty, indeterminate, grew in the greenhouse pruned to 3 stems.
I agree, it’s very beautiful, tasty, and quite productive. BUT, in the conditions of our extreme heat, it became very soft; I mean, it had absolutely no shelf life at all, lasting maybe 24 hours at most. Sigh, if it only had more firmness, it would be priceless. Or if we just had a slightly cooler summer. Still, I might repeat it someday. By the way, the “Starfighters” (Rebel Starfighter series) are also very weak in this regard for us.
An excellent variety, it became my discovery of the year! Sweet, productive, and what a stunning beauty! Definitely going on the permanent grow list!
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I didn’t like it! The tomatoes are not large, and there aren’t many on the bush either. The bush itself is flimsy, and right now it looks like absolutely nothing! I’m growing 2 bushes and they are both like this!
I repeated it from my own seeds, and it got frostbitten again. I probably need to sow it later and transplant it closer to May, but I transplanted it in mid-April and they got hit by frosts and heavy downpours. The bushes were vine-like, I grew them in multiple stems, and they set fruit well. They made it through to autumn. The flesh is bicolor, absolutely delicious, and very sweet.
Sofia’s Sweet Caramel.
I repeated it from my own saved seeds, and there were no segregations/off-types (last year one bush gave a segregation—red hearts with barely noticeable stripes, but it was still productive and tasty).
One bush grew in the greenhouse in two stems, the second one grew outdoors in a large pot near the gazebo—and the fruits in the pot were especially large, up to 380g (13.4 oz)!
An excellent variety—tasty, sweet, beautiful, productive. I still have a few fruits sitting in storage right now (November 15).
My version of this variety turned out as two different variants. I grew two bushes. One had anthocyanin, the other didn’t. The shape was more heart-pepper shaped rather than the beaked hearts on both variants. The beaks point to the side. The one without anthocyanin was completely uninteresting in taste. I didn’t even bother photographing it. Both bushes were unproductive, there were few fruits. And the fruits weren’t large. Averaged around 150g (5 oz) on both.
The second version, also closer to pepper-shaped, had a large amount of anthocyanin, even though the bush didn’t grow in direct sun, but rather in good lighting alongside all the other oranges and bicolors. I wasn’t even expecting to see anthocyanin! The variant with anthocyanin turned out more interesting in taste. Sweetish. Not enough to mark it as amazing, but very decent.
So, I didn’t get to experience the breeder’s true vision. Unfortunately, I only got segregations/off-types.
Quote from Svetikk:
Sofia’s Sweet Caramel. Repeated from my own saved seeds, and there were no segregations/off-types… 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).”
