Commercially introduced by us
Phonetically pronounced: sue-gur-an pem-beh-see
Sugören Pembesi comes from the Sugören (formerly known as Çengiler) Village of Yalova, Turkey, that was founded by the Balkan Turks who migrated to mainland Turkey in 1925. This variety has been grown in the same village since then.
Fruits of Sugören Pembesi are pink, uniformly round, firm, juicy and packed with flavor. We loved eating it fresh but it also is great in salads. Being one of the most prolific heirloom tomatoes we have ever grown in our field, indeterminate plants keep pumping fruits until frost. Although fruit skin is thin, we didn’t observe any cracking throughout the season.
We originally received seeds from two different sources for this variety. One was a grower who purchased the seeds from the Sugören Village co-op for us, paying 95 Turkish cents (kuruş) per seed (about half a dollar per seed at the time). Other one was our dear friend and seed saver, Gökhan Erdinç, who received the seeds from another seed saver who had collected the seeds from the same village, where the tomato originated and has been stewarded. We grew both seeds, and concluded that both sources to be genuine.
If you are an heirloom tomato enthusiast, we highly recommend you to try this one.
Our current seed stock was grown by Tom Wahlberg of Decorah, IA. He was also one of the former seed house managers of Seed Savers Exchange.
Photo credit: Tom Wahlberg
Packet has 25 seeds
Pavel N. (verified owner) –
Thomas K. (verified owner) –
Larik (verified owner) –
I have grown three of the pink tomatoes for several years now – Sugören Pembesi, Haifeze Balic, and Turkey tomato. They have all done well at my community garden in Cleveland Ohio, and my family looks forward to them every season. In my opinion, these are the perfect sandwich and salad tomato – I made a panzanella from them, and it really was one of the best things I ate that summer. The texture is fine-grained, and the balance of flavor is gorgeous. The taste is a little more delicate than a “normal” red tomato, but still so flavorful. I think if you amend your soil and give these plenty of sun, they’ll do well. Even in poor conditions at my garden I get some beautiful maters from these.
Ross (verified owner) –
Very slow to bloom and produce, but the tomatoes are delicious and just like I remember in Turkey.