Tsingtao (Qingdao)

• Grown, sold, and described by Bunny Hop Seeds
• Plant growth: indeterminate
• Leaf type: regular leaf
• Time to maturity: midseason
• Approx. number of seeds per pack: 15+
• Germination tested after Hot Water Treatment for fungal and bacterial diseases

“Tsingtao” (Qingdao, Циндао) has surprising sweetness for a chocolate/black tomato, with excellent flavor and texture. The inner flesh is crimson at dead ripe. Tsingtao was not as productive as Midnight in Moscow in my 2015 spring trial. However, it made a huge comeback in the spring of 2016 and produced literally a box full of 1/2 to 1 pound tomatoes, with a few larger than that. Tsingtao has continued to produce excellently since then. It is a Russian commercial variety producing medium chocolate-brown beefsteaks, 5-8 oz. Tsingtao (Циндао, Qingdao) is the name of a city in China's East Shandong province, on the shore of the Yellow Sea. This variety is reported to have heat tolerance, and three online Russian tomato forums praised Tsingtao for its excellent flavor over other chocolate tomatoes and also discussed the heat tolerance. Please notice that I have corrected the spelling of the name from Tsindao to Tsingtao. When I searched the history of this variety, I found it written as “Tsindao” in the database. This must be an error, however, because Qingdao was previously known as “Tsingtao,” not “Tsindao.” The name is pronounced “ching-dow” (“dow” as in “cow”).