I am a tomato lover. Lunch for me can be sliced tomato, over which has been drizzled oil and vinegar, and a chunk of bread. I was introduced to this delicacy more than 50 years ago in the south of France.

For years I bought only those tomatoes grown in Spain but they slowly lost their piquancy. Relatives who live in that country say it’s because of the way they are increasingly cultivated beneath vast polythene greenhouses and bland tomatoes are for cooking or discarding or throwing at people.

They do this each year during the festival of La Tomatina on the last Wednesday in August in the town of Bunol in Valencia, Spain. So it’s just as well they have polythene greenhouses to produce them by the ton.

I now choose British and invariably opt for vine tomatoes until I thought, hang on. Aren’t all tomatoes grown on vines? So why bother if they are still clinging to a green stem?

The reason, I discovered, is that the longer the yare on the vine, the more flavour they attain.

According to the British Tomato Growers’ Association, vine tomatoes are those which are picked when ripe. This gives them maximum flavour but a short lifespan so they need to be packed and on the shelf double quick.

“All British tomatoes are vine-ripened as they have only a short distance to travel to market. Imported tomatoes are usually picked less ripe, to withstand the lengthy journey here by road or sea.”

Vine tomatoes – those still on the green vine – have especially good flavour, says the Association. And they’re delicious sliced and drizzled with oil and vinegar.