Thai Pink: Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2006

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2006

While the name for these is Thai Pink (due to the fact that they are from Thailand… shocker there), I almost think the name should be China Pink. The reason being is the color of the skin of this tomato is a lovely pink, much like the pink of roses on china. They are a very pretty tomato to look at.

The description from the company I bought it from reads:

This little egg shaped beauty is extremely productive and delicious. From Thailand, it produces loads of blemish-free 2 oz oval shaped bright pink fruit with a sparkling iridescence glow. When you bite into them, they pop with a snap filling your mouth with sweet deliciousness.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: These are very small plums. They are even smaller than the Black Plums and they are about the size of large cherry tomatoes, only elongated.

Shape: Very nice plum shape and they are consistent in shape.

The inside: Medium thickness walls so it is pretty meaty. The gelatin is pretty loose, so they are pretty juicy. Average size seeds and number of seeds for this size tomato.

Texture: Nice texture. Not mealy at all like you might find with other plums.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: I like the taste of this tomato. This tomato was both sweet and tart, like lemonade almost. It makes for really nice flavor right off the vine.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: The salt deadens the lemonade effect in that the sweet taste is not as prominent. I think this is a tomato that actually tastes better without salting.

Cooking Thoughts: I think that this would be a terrific salad tomato. I am not really fond of cherry tomatoes so I think this might be a good alternative. It would probably be good for sauces and paste as well, but you run into that whole “pain in the ass to peel that many” problem. I could see these being a great appetizer tomato, using them in appetizer recipes instead of cherry tomatoes

Growing Notes:
If you had asked me a week ago, I would have told you that this was a healthy tomato plant. Today, I went out to the bed and this plant was near crispy critter, despite good rainfall in the past week. It looks like a wilt is attacking it, and as it was a clean bed before this season, I think it may have come from the grower (which is not to blame the grower, it is hard to keep wilts outs of a mass heirloom tomato growing operation).

What worries me is not that the tomato got wilt, but how quickly it succumbed to it. A week ago, this was a healthy, vibrant plant and now I expect that it will be completely dead by the end of the week. The volunteers two beds over have been fighting wilt for a few weeks and don’t look half as bad.

Other than the wilt, this is as prolific a producer as a cherry tomato.

Will Hanna grow this one again:
Maybe yes, probably no. I would love to be able to grow this in lieu of a cherry tomato. This tomato is fantastic in the taste department, but I am really alarmed by how fast it went under to the wilt. It won’t be in my mix next year while I solarize beds and try to eliminate the fungus in the soil. I also will not buy this one as a plant again. I may try again if I can grow it from seed, but I am really bad at growing tomatoes (or any green thing) from seed.