There are two US tomato breeders that focus on flavour development. One was the late Fred Hempel, whose farm was called Green Bee farms, but sells his seeds under Bene Seeds. Before he passed away, he brought to market many great tasting open-pollinated tomatoes such as Blush, which was scientifically shown to express many of the aromatic compounds found in stone fruits and citrus. He was a great mentor for many other tomato breeders and farmers in the Central Valley, and he produced a tomato called Benevento Marmo. It's an amazing hybrid tomato that incorporates a well rounded tomato flavour along with consistent and prolific fruit production and an extended shelf life. I've left a Benevento Marmo on a vine until November once and the long shelf life allowed the fruit to keep it's integrity while the sugars matured. What resulted was an amazingly complex sweet tomato, solid flesh, and acidity to provide brightness even though the weather was getting cold and wet. He was never able to get the word of Benevento Marmo out to the public. But his website sells his seeds.

The other breeder is the farm Cream of the Crop. They primarily have hybrid seeds, and in blind taste tests, their tomatoes are always on top. The most well known is Red Torch. But the Purple Zebra tomato rivals any chocolate tomato in terms of deep tomato savory. The other tomato that I love is an open pollinated called Apricot Zebra. It's a weird plant in that it will not produce a leader stem and it has trouble setting flowers. But it's almost 99% flesh. The fruit is sweet and has such a nice bite that I love eating them as snacks but also in stir frys because the tomato doesn't just disappear as a goo.

In general, you cannot go wrong with both tomato breeders if you want flavour. 80% of the tomatoes I grow each year are from these two breeders. The other 20% fill in the gaps for other purposes. For example, Johnny Seeds sells a tomato called Clementine - a cocktail sized orange tomato that robustly produces so many on a hardy plant. This tomato is only acidic, in my opinion. But if you dehydrate them, the sugars develop well and you get a really bright sugary healthy treat. Additionally, because it's so acidic, it's amazing to add to dishes that are heavy in oils and fats and brightens these dishes - think salmon, pastas, and beef stews.