Vegetable or Fruit?

Huang Chun-chieh, director of the Tainan Research Farm of Known-You Seed Company, has been breeding tomatoes for over 24 years. He says that when foreign buyers come to the farm’s tomato growing section, they treat the mottled-­skinned ‘Heishi’ variety with disdain, but Taiwanese actually have a special fondness for it.

Mixed breed a Taiwanese favorite

Huang reveals that the Heishi tomato was first bred in 1974 as a “Taiwanese–Japanese hybrid.” It was created by company founder Chen Wun-yu, who imported then-popular Japanese commercial varieties and crossed them with Taiwanese tomatoes.

The common characteristic of the Heishi tomatoes currently on the market is that they have a green-black shoulder (the rounded portion at the top of the fruit, surrounding the stem scar). Moreover, says Huang, “the darker they are, the better they taste.” 

Huang explains that Heishi tomatoes are also known as “red spot” because they are harvested when a small patch of red appears at the bottom. This variety, part red and part green, is sweet with a tinge of tartness and a crisp texture—it provides the crispness that makes the “sliced tomato platter” at shaved ice shops stand out. People in Tainan and Kaohsiung also eat them dipped in soy sauce, dried plum powder, or a brown sugar and ginger sauce, offering uniquely Taiwanese flavors.

The “sliced tomato platter” is a snack unique to Taiwan’s shaved ice shops.

People in Tainan and Kaohsiung eat tomatoes dipped in soy sauce, dried plum powder, or brown sugar and ginger sauce, offering distinctive Taiwanese flavors.

From vegetable to fruit

Despite the popularity of Heishi in Taiwan, Known-You’s marquee variety of tomato is ‘Santa.’

Known-You vice general manager Natasha Yu relates the origin story of this variety as being a classic tale of “a grandfather doting on a beloved grandchild.” Forty years ago, only large, sour tomatoes were grown in Taiwan, and Chen Wun-yu’s grandson Chen Wei-ting didn’t like them. Rather than tell his grandson to eat them anyway, the grandpa told his researchers to develop a new variety.

In 1989 they finally produced an olive-sized “grape tomato” (an elongated small tomato), which has become the celebrated Santa. It is very sweet, and small enough for children to eat in a single bite.

Yu says that in the past Americans did not consider tomatoes to be fruit, but rather vegetables. After Santa seedlings were imported into the US, they were registered as “grape tomatoes” because they were the size of grapes, were sweet, and could be eaten in rapid ­succession.

Rosada is probably the premier variety of small tomato sold in Taiwan. (courtesy of Known-You Seed Company)

Oval Rosada grape tomatoes have thin skins and are very juicy, with sweetness levels of up to 10° Brix.

Grape tomatoes of the Santa variety are mostly round and slightly elongated, with thicker skins and a sweet–sour taste.

Santa surpassed by Rosada

Eleven years later, Known-You bred “a next-generation Santa”—the ‘Rosada’ variety. Rosada has a thinner skin than Santa and is even sweeter. Larger than Santa, it features a compound inflorescence and is high yielding.

Despite its advantages, Rosada faced obstacles in gaining market acceptance. It was only when farmers in Chiayi began raising it in greenhouses that this variety came of age.

Huang says that “pampered” describes Rosada well. It is not heat tolerant and requires meticulous care, especially fertilizer management and moisture control. The market really took off five years after it was first grown in Chiayi, launching the “Rosada era.”

The well-bred Rosada has a natural beauty which can be described as a “ceiling” for small tomatoes. At present it holds a nearly 90% share of the Taiwanese market for greenhouse-raised grape tomatoes.

Because the thin-skinned Rosada is easily bruised, Huang suggests that Taiwanese are lucky in that the nation’s infrastructure is sound and roads are in good shape, so that they can enjoy Rosada tomatoes that ­haven’t been crushed into ketchup.

In fact, many other small tomato varieties are grown in Taiwan, including ‘Milton,’ ‘Sun Jewel,’ ‘Annie,’ and ‘Shiny Ruby.’ The next time you bite into a thin-skinned, juicy tomato, please remember that it is not just a fruit, it is the product of four decades of perseverance in the pursuit of delicious flavor. 

Huang Chun-chieh, director of the Tainan Research Farm of Known-You Seed Company, avers that the primary goal of a breeder should be delicious taste, only after which one should consider environmental adaptability and disease resistance.