Very little is known about the origin of this tomato, except that it was collected in Isfahan nearly a century ago. It was grown at the farm in 2023, and we were so pleased with its delicious flavor and its productivity. Each fruit is slightly larger than a cherry tomato, and the flavor packs a punch. Enjoy vigorous, healthy plants and stunning, delicious tomatoes! They’re great in classic Iranian tomato recipes like Salad Shirazi, omlet, gheymeh, and more. Mostly because they’re just a great tomato!

Start your tomato plants in the Spring indoors and transplant outside once the chance of frost has passed. Tomatoes benefit from some trellising so that they don’t just spread all on the floor; it’s easier to pick fruit off of them when they’re not laying on the ground. 

Huge thanks to the farmers at Experimental Farm Network for retrieving this variety from the USDA Germplasm system and making it available to the public, over 82 years after it was collected in Isfahan! We don’t know about any of the context of these plants, who grew them in Isfahan, what did they like to cook them with, how they grew them, etc. But we are grateful nonetheless for the chance to connect with them! From the Experimental Farm Network website:

We got the seeds for this tomato from the USDA's National Plant Germplasm System. According to their records, it was collected in Isfahan, Iran in 1940 (just five years after foreigners were asked to stop referring to the country as Persia). That's about all we can gather from the USDA database entry, other than the fact that the listed collector was a man by the name of Walter Norman Koelz.