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Yes Maam! I pick at 20-30% color break. The rational for gardeners to pick early is to avoid insect and animal damage and perhaps something like sunscald. You balance that against some or possible loss of some sugar and flavor against harvesting undamaged fruit. (I think the loss is minimal.)

Sugar content and flavor.

A large amount of the sugar in a tomato is produced in the leaves and transported to the tomato. Some conversion of starch to sugar will occur after picking but picking early may reduce sugar content.

Flavor and color will continue to change after picking. Tomato growers pick when tomatoes are still green because of the handling and shipping characteristics. Less likely to be damaged when boxed and shipped. They then flood a storage area or shipping truck with ethylene to force artificial ripening so the tomatoes look ripe when displayed at the grocery store.

Gardeners have more control over when to pick. "Color Break" is the technical term for the development of skin coloring in a tomato. For gardeners a good rule is to pick only after you have 20 -30% of the tomato surface displaying color and allow the ripening to consider in a window or kitchen counter. The flavor will continue to develop. ****Note....Some varieties produce more sugar than others. (Yellow skinned tomatoes according to one source.) Annannas Noire (Black pineapple) is a very sweet variety that is not black but sort of green/red mottled color which is noticeably sweet, at least to me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tomato....Vegetable or Fruit? "In the everyday language of people, a tomato is a vegetable, while from the botanical point of view, it is a fruit. This topic was a question of debate during the 19th century at the Supreme Court in the USA, with the case of Nix vs. Hedden where the court judged the tomato as a vegetable due to the manner of its use [3]." It also discusses tomato coloration and sugar content and at least in their collection, it was yellow skinned varieties.

Thank you for the color break concept. I will have paid more for this cherry tomato plant than what I think it will produce. But then, I wouldn’t have had the fun of watching it grow and tending to it.

The shishitos have been the star of the summer. They’ve needed little attention, but are producing quite well. As an experiment, I planted two in the ground and two in large pots. The two in large pots are producing even better than the ones in the ground, so I will likely do all of them in pots next summer.