The plum that actually tastes like bubblegum — sweet, spicy, and so productive one tree can feed the whole street.

The Toka is a Japanese-American hybrid plum (Prunus salicina 'Toka'), often called the "Bubblegum Plum" for the unmistakable candy-sweet, faintly spicy flavor of its firm reddish-bronze fruit. Bred for the upper Midwest, it pairs that distinctive taste with cold-hardiness most plums can't match, and it doubles as a generous pollen source for nearby Japanese and American plums. Eat it fresh off the branch, or turn the rich flesh into jam, sauce, and dried fruit.

Why growers choose the Toka

• One-of-a-kind flavor. The aromatic, spicy-sweet "bubblegum" taste sets it apart from any standard market plum.
• Genuinely cold-hardy. Thriving in zones 3 through 8, it shrugs off winters that kill most Japanese plums.
• A pollination powerhouse. Toka is one of the best pollen donors available, helping set heavier crops on other plums planted nearby.
• Reliably heavy bearer. Mature trees load up with fruit, ripening in midsummer for fresh eating and preserving.
• Pretty in bloom. Clouds of fragrant white spring blossoms make it an ornamental as well as a producer.

At a mature 15 to 20 feet tall and wide, Toka makes a substantial in-ground orchard or backyard tree — a single specimen that delivers shade, spring bloom, and bushels of fruit, while quietly improving the harvest of every plum around it.