As a backyard tomato “farmer” I’ve never had a store bought tomato match the flavour of homegrown, even if it’s just a common variety and not an heirloom variety. Cold storage can’t be good for flavour.
And only eat tomatoes in season. I’m lucky that we have the farmer’s market opening next month with excellent tomatoes starting sometime in July or early August.
Trying a new experiment in growing tomatoes this year. I’m growing them in hay bales. See how that works come July and August.
I think we’re being played. As a former farm boy, I say the reason tomatoes have no flavor is because super market tomatoes are no longer allowed time to RIPEN ON THE VINE. They are picked while green, and gassed with chemicals, which causes them to turn red, but they are still unripe. That is why they have no flavor; because the flavors were not given time to develop on the vine. Also, they are so hard they nearly “crunch” when you eat them. Ripe tomatoes do NOT crunch when you eat them. Same for cantalopes. I haven’t found a REAL luscious, succulent, swoon-over cantalope in 40 years.
Ever since I first grew tomatoes at home, I have trouble buying store tomatoes at all. It’s like paying for juicy cardboard.
My father used to grow the most delicious tomatoes. The ones in stores are awful. Even those at farmer’s market are not as good s my father’s.