Chocolate Cherry Tomato — A Dark, Rich Snacking Heirloom
Chocolate Cherry (Solanum lycopersicum ‘Chocolate Cherry’) packs the deep, complex flavour of a full-size black tomato into a bite-size fruit. The round, roughly 2.5 cm (1 in) cherries ripen through green and lavender to a rich port-wine mahogany, and the taste follows the colour: sweet and full, with the smoky, earthy undertones that make dark tomatoes so prized. Each fruit is a little larger than a standard cherry, thin-skinned, and borne in generous trusses of six to eight.
This is a vigorous, prolific indeterminate heirloom that keeps producing from midsummer to frost on a tall vine. At about 70 days from transplant it ripens in the mid-season, and it carries a genuinely useful trait for a cherry: the fruit resists cracking and holds well on the vine, so you can pick it a shade early and let it finish indoors without losing quality — handy where summer rain splits thinner-skinned cherries or birds get there first. Give it full sun, steady moisture, and a sturdy support, and a single plant becomes the one people graze straight off the vine.
🇺🇸 US: Annual in all zones. Reliable and productive across the Midwest, Northeast, and South; the long warm summers of the mid-Atlantic and lower Midwest ripen heavy trusses right through the season.
Best for: fresh snacking, salads, roasting, and colourful garnish on any plate.
🌱 How to Grow Chocolate Cherry Tomato Seeds
Start Chocolate Cherry tomato seeds indoors 6–8 weeks before your last frost date, sown 6 mm (¼ in) deep and held at 21–27°C (70–80°F), where they germinate in 5–10 days. Bright light from the moment they emerge keeps seedlings stocky — a grow light beats a windowsill. Pot up at the first true leaves, harden off over 7–10 days, and transplant only after the last frost has passed and nights hold above 10°C (50°F).
Plant deep, up to the top leaves, so the buried stem roots out and feeds heavy trusses. Space plants 45–60 cm (18–24 in) apart in full sun and cage or stake at planting time — this is a tall, vigorous indeterminate that will sprawl without support. Cherry tomatoes crop so heavily that consistent watering matters as much as feeding: water deeply and evenly, mulch to hold moisture, and go easy on high-nitrogen fertilizer, which pushes leaf over fruit. Pinch the side shoots to one or two main stems if you want fewer, cleaner trusses and better airflow, and top the growing tips about four weeks before your first frost so the vine ripens what it has set.
🍅 Harvesting & Storing Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes
Pick Chocolate Cherry when the skin has deepened to a full port-wine mahogany and the fruit gives slightly to gentle pressure — dark cherries hide their ripeness, so go by that colour shift and a soft yield rather than waiting for a red that never comes. Because the variety resists cracking and holds on the vine, you have a forgiving window; check trusses every 2–3 days at peak season and, if summer storms or birds threaten, pick at first full blush and finish ripening on the counter. Never refrigerate a ripe tomato — cold below 12°C (55°F) turns the flesh mealy and flattens the flavour.
Chocolate Cherry is a fresh-eating tomato first, and it holds a few days at room temperature stem-side down out of direct sun. For a surplus, these dark cherries roast and dry exceptionally well: halved and slow-roasted at 120°C (250°F) they concentrate into rich, jammy bites worth freezing in bags, and they dehydrate into intense dried tomatoes. Whole fruit also freezes fine on a tray for later cooking.
🍽️ Cooking with Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes
Chocolate Cherry earns its place raw, where the mahogany colour and smoky-sweet flavour do real work. Whole or halved, the fruit dresses up a salad, a cheese board, or a caprese with skewered bocconcini, and it makes a striking two-colour dish alongside a red or yellow cherry. Straight off the vine it is a snacking tomato that rarely reaches the kitchen.
Cooked, the dark flesh brings depth few cherries can. Roast whole with garlic and olive oil until they burst for a quick pasta or bruschetta topping, blister them in a hot skillet to fold through grains and salads, or halve them onto a pizza for pockets of sweet-savoury richness. Their sweetness also balances a sharp vinaigrette or a black-bean salsa beautifully.
🫙 Saving Chocolate Cherry Tomato Seeds
Chocolate Cherry tomato seeds are rewarding to save because the variety is open-pollinated and grows true to type, keeping its dark colour and rich flavour generation after generation. Use the fermentation method: squeeze the seeds and gel into a jar, add a splash of water, and leave at room temperature for 2–3 days until a film forms on top. That fermentation dissolves the germination-inhibiting gel coat and cuts seed-borne disease. Pour off the floaters and pulp, rinse the heavy seeds that sank, and dry them on a plate or screen for 1–2 weeks until they snap rather than bend. Stored cool and dark, they stay viable for 4–5 years.
Two habits keep the line true. Save only from open-pollinated Chocolate Cherry, never a hybrid, so the mahogany fruit reproduces. And because tomatoes occasionally cross when varieties flower side by side, space different types 3–4.5 m (10–15 ft) apart or bag a few flower trusses with fine cloth if purity matters. Before storing a batch, sprout ten seeds on a damp paper towel — if seven or more germinate, the lot is good to keep.
