Japanese Black Trifele Tomato Australia

I have a few dozen varieties of tomatoes (as well as some I am breeding) that I grow and save seed from. I don’t have enough space/water/time to grow all of them every year, so each year I grow some tomato varieties to eat and save seed and the following year I grow different varieties.

It is a bit of a rotation, everything gets grown every few years so I can save fresh seed and not lose that variety. I never buy tomato seedlings as it is difficult to find decent varieties, and I certainly wouldn’t waste my time growing bland varieties such as 'Roma' or 'Black Russian' when there are so many better varieties that I could grow instead.

Currently, out of the dozens of varieties I have, there are only three tomato varieties that I grow every year. "Japanese Black Trifele", "Verde Claro", and "Micro Tom". I grow the first two as they taste utterly amazing but very different from one another, and I grow micro tom because it is tiny and fun and I am always trying to increase its seeds.

All the other tomato varieties I grow are great, I don’t save their seed if they are not impressive, but none of the others are good enough to secure a space in my garden every year.

Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes are not uniform in size or shape

Japanese Black Trifele (spelled a few different ways), known in Russian as Yaponskiy Trufel Chernyyi Японский трюфель is probably my all-time favourite tasting tomato. Despite its name this variety is an Old Russian heirloom variety. I am told that in Russia it is still grown by many home gardeners as well as being grown commercially where it is often canned.

I am also told that ‘Japanese’ was most likely added to its name to make it sound more exotic and exclusive. This is an old heirloom Russian variety, and like many of the older Russian tomato varieties this is easy to grow and has a rich tomato taste.

Japanese black trifele has potato leaf foliage, meaning that the leaves are less serrated and look similar to leaves of a potato plant. There is a lot of debate about if this is a good or a bad trait, I personally don’t think it makes much difference in my climate other than looking nice. It may be an issue in humid climates where increasing ventilation is critical.

Potato leaf is a recessive trait so can be useful in breeding or seed saving by knowing early if seedlings have crossed.

Japanese Black Trifele has potato leaf foliage

The fruit are not uniform in size or shape, they vary a bit even on the same truss. They are mostly pear shaped with some that are rounder than others. This variety is a great producer for me. While I have never weighed all the fruit produced from one plant it is a reliable producer for me even in bad years. Quite often they are one of the first to ripen in my garden, and they keep producing more delicious tomatoes for me until the frosts come.

Japanese black trifele is an indeterminate variety that ripens early in the season for me and continues producing fruit until killed by frosts. Like any other indeterminate tomato variety you can over winter them if protected from frosts and grow them as a perennial. I usually grow them from seed each year rather than overwintering even though they produce fruit around two months earlier when overwintered.

While Japanese Black Trifele is called a 'black' tomato, it is an old variety and not one of the newer high anthocyanin varieties, so it is never truly black. The fruit would probably better be described as mahogany brown rather than black. The fruit is a nice rich brown inside and out, and they often have green shoulders.

"OSU Blue" tomato really is black, unlike Japanese Black Trifele which is brown

You may wonder why people care if tomatoes have green shoulders, it is all to do with taste!

Green shoulders in a tomato means that it is lacking the uniform ripening gene mutation (u). This gene mutation is carried by practically all supermarket tomatoes, and it is associated with bland taste. The presence of this mutation is one of the reasons why many modern tomatoes look nice but are so bland. There are not many good tomatoes that carry this u mutation.

The uniform ripening gene is great for harvesting at the breaker stage, cold storage, long distance transport, ethylene ripening, resulting in pretty looking fruits that you would never guess had been harvested several months ago. The uniform ripening gene is not desirable for home growers who want better tasting tomatoes that they can pick when perfectly ripe and eat when fresh. Tomatoes that lack the uniform ripening mutation, such as most heirloom tomatoes including Japanese Black Trifele, quite often taste much nicer.

As well as tasting amazing fresh in salads or on sandwiches, Japanese black trifele is suitable for cooking or drying. We tend to eat them raw, but have frozen some to use in cooking where they performed well. They are really quite versatile, but tomato season only comes around once a year so I enjoy them fresh when they are a seasonal delicacy.

Japanese Black Trifele in the middle, Woolly Kate on the right, Mint Julep above, unnamed on the left

Japanese black trifele tomatoes are not perfect and they do have some issues. The plants can grow reasonably large, in the modern world of patio gardens and postage stamp sized backyards they would probably be better if they were a dwarf plant. The plant grows large and the fruit is too small for my liking, I would prefer the fruit to be a bit larger. This isn’t much of an issue, it just means I might use 2 or 3 for my tomato sandwiches instead of just 1. The rich and complex tomato taste of Japanese Black Trifele more than makes up for these shortcomings.

Japanese black trifele tomatoes have interesting looking potato leaf foliage, I think the mahogany coloured pear shaped fruit looks good, they have large and reliable yields spread over a long season, and most importantly they have a rich tomato taste. You can see why it is one of the few varieties that I grow every year rather than on rotation with all the other varieties I like to grow.

It used to be impossible to find Japanese Black Trifele tomato seeds for sale in Australia, I am happy to say that is no longer the case! Several places now sell seed which is a great thing. I sometimes sell seed from organically grown Japanese black trifele tomatoes or seed of some of the other heirloom tomatoes I grow through my for sale page.