Tzi Bi U (Purple Jasper) Chinese Tomato Review

Tszy-Yu (Violet Jasper, Tzi Bi U, Purple Jasper, Tzy Bi Yu)

Tszy-Yu (Purple Jasper). Country – China.
Description: An amazingly beautiful variety! The fruits are purple with a pattern, hang in clusters, very sweet and aromatic. Weight 40g (1.4 oz). Indeterminate plant. High yield.

I suggest adding Violet_Jasper and Tzi Bi U to the title names here.

Lyudmila wrote:
Description: An amazingly beautiful variety! The fruits are purple with a pattern, hang in clusters, very sweet and aromatic…

Lyudmila, have you tried it yourself yet? Can you tell me if these are the same as Gusev’s? I’m planning my 2014 season, trying to figure out what I have.

He describes them like this:
The bushes are literally smothered in these striped-brown tomatoes. They can become the centerpiece of any table. Excellent for canning. Disease-resistant. They bear fruit until late autumn. Tall growing. Mid-season ripening. For open ground and greenhouses.

They look similar in the photos.

Alexander, I bought this variety from Natalya Dryzhakova. I took the variety description from her. My Tszy-Yu grew outdoors in open ground, and the summer was rainy this year. It wasn’t “smothered” in fruit for me, just a normal yield. They are very beautiful. They didn’t make it to the canning jars; the kids and I ate them all, you could say right off the bush 😄. Oh, by the way, it didn’t get sick with late blight 👍. Tall bush. I should have planted it in the greenhouse, maybe then it would have been smothered in fruit.

The variety “Tszy-Yu” Purple Jasper (China) came to me in 2010 from collector V.V. Lvov. The characteristics of the variety fully matched during my trials… I grew it in the greenhouse and couldn’t get enough of it—beautiful, with unusual fruit coloring (purple-red with colored stripes), the trusses hung with 8-10 fruits simultaneously…

Not only is the variety very decorative, but it is also great in taste—sweet, delicious fruits that left neither adults nor kids indifferent!

The variety is indeterminate, and can only show its full potential in a greenhouse under our northern conditions.

In the photos that Lyudmila posted, its full beauty isn’t quite as pronounced (the summer was rainy, as she wrote… plus it grew outdoors)…
(Yes, she bought this variety from me before I even joined the forum…)

Alexander, I advise you to reach out to me in PMs 😄

Lyudmila wrote:
Alexander, I bought this variety from Natalya Dryzhakova…

Yes, thank you, Lyuda! Even before you answered, I noticed I had seen something similar somewhere—I looked at Natalya Pavlovna’s catalog and it was spot on.

I didn’t have time to reply—had to run off, and when I got back, Natalya Pavlovna had already replied here 😉
I’ll go chat with her now…

Thank you, ladies! You are all so responsive here! 🌸 🌸 🌸

For me, in this terrible year, the variety performed very well in open ground: productive, disease-resistant, beautiful and, surprisingly, quite large. But in my mom’s greenhouse, it was small, some sort of rusty color with golden stripes, though also productive. I am definitely keeping it, but only for open ground and only a couple of bushes. By the way, I didn’t like it for canning/pickling—the skin is way too tough and it wrinkled all up, but then again, at least it didn’t burst!

🌸 🌸 🌸 …This year…

Yaroslavna wrote:
…This year…

Beautiful! Moreover, it doesn’t lose its color in the jars, it stays just as purple with green stripes.

The color doesn’t translate perfectly on camera 😳. Opened a jar yesterday 🙂

We basically had no summer, but this specific variety was absolutely smothered in fruit! And in the jars, it really didn’t lose its color.

The seeds were from Hong Kong.

I’m posting two of my strains in this thread at once.

Dzy-By-U (Seeds and name from Kulik, Ukraine):
– Plant habit: mid-late, moderately spreading, standard foliage.
– Fruit set: skipped blossoms (flowers dropped off), the bushes have already been pulled up.
– Bush height in open ground as of Aug 15th: 0.8m (2.6 ft).
– Trusses: 2-4 fruits each.
– Overall yield: low.
– Fruit: round, pinkish-purple color, with green and black stripes, beautiful.
– Firmness of ripe fruit: high.
– Flavor: meaty, a bit “cottony” (mealy), sweetness gets a 4+ out of 5.
First impression: a tomato for processing and canning.
Minuses: weak bush, low yield, ordinary sweetish taste.
Scores: seedlings – 3+, bush – 3, fruit – 4+, overall variety score – 4-.

Tsi-Yu (Seeds from a seed swap):
– Plant habit: mid-late, moderately spreading.
– Fruit set: skipped blossoms, bush already pulled up.
– Bush height in open ground as of Aug 15th: 1.2m (4 ft).
– Trusses: 1-3 fruits each.
– Overall yield: below average.
– Fruit: round, slightly flattened, burgundy color with distinct green streaks, very original looking.
– Firmness of ripe fruit: average.
– Flavor: dense, but “cottony” (mealy), sweetness gets a 4.
First impression: a canning tomato. Looks very original in jars.
Minuses: lacked sweetness, cottony/mealy texture.
Scores: seedlings – 4-, bush – 3, fruit – 4, overall variety score – 4-.

The varieties are incredibly similar… could it be the exact same variety? Just with different phonetic translations of the name?

Grew in open ground – indeterminate, round cherry fruits, red-raspberry color with bronze-green stripes, weight 20-25g (0.7-0.9 oz).

In the greenhouse, Tszy-Yu reached 2 meters (6.5 ft) in height, mid-early ripening time. Fruits are small, round in shape, burgundy colored with stripes. Very tasty, juicy, and sweet.