Miracle Berries - You gotta check this out!

So my boss was telling me today about this NY times article about "miracle berries". So you eat this berry, and apparently its got some chemical in it that "rewires" your taste buds to make sour and/or bitter food sweet. So if you eat the berry, then try horseradish, radishes, lemons, tequila, AND BEER!... it makes it taste sweet. Its supposed to make stout taste like chocolate milk. Check out the wiki page on it. Going price is about $2 per berry and the effect lasts 30-180 minutes. Plants are available, but won't produce until they are 4-10 years old. All of the places that I've seen that have mature plants are out of stock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_fruit

Anyone tried this out? Sounds f-in awesome!

sirsloop said:

So my boss was telling me today about this NY times article about "miracle berries". So you eat this berry, and apparently its got some chemical in it that "rewires" your taste buds to make sour and/or bitter food sweet. So if you eat the berry, then try horseradish, radishes, lemons, tequila, AND BEER!... it makes it taste sweet. Its supposed to make stout taste like chocolate milk. Check out the wiki page on it. Going price is about $2 per berry and the effect lasts 30-180 minutes. Plants are available, but won't produce until they are 4-10 years old. All of the places that I've seen that have mature plants are out of stock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_fruit

Anyone tried this out? Sounds f-in awesome!

Click to expand...

Yes they work. Had them in Malaysia. Never seen them here tho'.

Brew a beer with some of that in it and serve it at a beer festival....

That would be an expensive batch of beer I think, but it would be fun as hell to have at a small party or something. To someone that has never heard or tried it would be pretty mind blowing!

I just ordered myself 3 boxes of the tablets - http://www.miracle-berry.net/. IDK... figure i'll try em out with friends and family... hopefully they will arrive before july 4th weekend. I'm not gonna tell my wife about em until they arrive then i'll freak her out with some lemon eating! HA!

So I ordered those "Miracle Fruit Pills" from this place out in the UK like a month ago. So I got these pills in with low expectations. I stopped by the supermarket today and got some lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, granny smith apples, kiwis and some sour lemon warheads.

So keep in mind I got a decent fat lip at a concert a couple days ago and there's a wound in there. I start sampling all of this food and the lemons, limes, and (1) warhead make me cringe. I can barely suck on a little piece. The orange, kiwi, strawberry, and apple all taste their normal sour/sweet. So I suck on this miracle fruit pill and wait about 5 minutes for it to dissolve in my mouth.

I went with the lime first and Ill admit I was a little tentative. I sucked in a piece and it still has some sour qualities, but it tasted like the best limeade you have ever had. OMG. I went ****ing ravenous!!! I literally smashed the thing in my mouth. Sucked out all the juices and ate the fruit. Keep in mind I have an open wound on my lip and its burning like a mother ****er. It tasted so good I didnt care. Next up lemon... same thing. I put one sour lemon warhead in my mouth, no problem. I opened FIVE and put them all in there at once! HAHAH!! It was great! I could feel the acid burning the back of my throat but it tasted great!! The orange was a little much because its already really sweet to begin with. I don't recommend that. The granny smith apple was sooo good. It was like eating your grandmas special apple pie without the filling and crust. It was sooo good. Strawberries tasted like they had whipped cream smeared all over them. Last but not least the Kiwi. OMG. If you ever try these things you gotta get like 10 kiwi's. I ate so many kiwi's I almost puked, literally. Miracle fruit plus kiwi's has got to be about the best thing mankind has ever created short of a kobe beef steak or chicken wing pizza with blue cheese dressing. SOOOOOO good! My lip is totally ****ed now from all the citric acid that ate the raw flesh and I have the worst stomach ache from the massive influx of fruit, but it was worth it. I have 28.5 pills left and plan on using them!!! HAHAH!

FYI, I tried apfelwein which was nasty, and a belgian honey ale that was WAYYYY sweet. It tasted like someone poured a pound of sugar in the beer. BLEH!

omg... i just made some lemon chicken with pan roasted (canned) corn. Holy **** canned corn has never tasted so good... and the simplest recipe for chicken awesome. insane... im stuffed...

Dude, you didn't read the news story on those things did you? Made by field workers in China, high lead and pesticide concentrations, and several deaths from a bad batch in Spain.
















j/k I haven't tried them, and haven't read much about them.

Now a miracle berry fruit lambic could be REALLY interesting!

Whats next? A miracle pill to give you wood that shouldnt last for more than 4 hours if so see your doctor right away!?!?!?!?!?


Sweeeeeeeeet!!!!!!!

I ordered some tablets off ebay as the fresh fruit goes bad really quickly. Will report back after I get them.

ok so how would u brew with it...pop couple tablets in the bottling bucket and let it dissolve and then bottle? thats what i would do

At first I'm thinking...what's the point.

But then I begin to think about the benefits to people on a sugar-restricted diet...or folks that are tryin to cut sweets to loose weight.

Imagine kiwi, lemons, limes and other low-cal, low sugar fruits tasting like sugary treats...

Damn, sirsloop, it sounds like you're high as balls and have a hardcore case of the munchies.

+1 on that. I was thinking that exact thing.

I've got seeds on order, and plan on playing around with them once I get the plants to fruit... Yes I am willing to wait it out!

Cheers

Lucas

My berries came in. Here's what I thought:

I held half a tablet in my mouth for approximately two minutes letting it cover my tongue. It has a sort of sweet tartness but is not very exciting.

Lemon juice - The killer app of this berry tastes just like lemonade.
Strawberry - A bit sweeter than normal with none of the tartness.
Pickle - Almost completely flavorless. Only feel the juice burn in throat.
Beer - No bitterness but not a whole lot of flavor. Slightly sweet.
Vinegar - Not as nasty as normal. Still leaves terrible taste in mouth afterwards.
Ice cream - Awesome but I'm not sure if it's enhanced.

Overall a really interesting experience. Fun to try but it's a bit expensive and is not going to change the artificial sweetener industry. You really lose a lot of taste when you take sour and bitter away from foods. Still if you get a chance to try some it's worthwhile just make sure you have a lot of food and drinks to try out.

i remember researching these a few years ago...

the reason they aren't a very good 'additive' (for beer, or even from the FDA's perspective) is the time lag it takes for the berries to take effect.

So, basically, you could brew a super-sour beer and add the berries, and the first few sips would be unbearably sour before it kicked in. Also, take into consideration the concentration required for the 'effect' to kick in - if you want that berry to be taking effect within the first few drinks, you'd have to add a bunch of 'em to the brew... getting very $$


they are a blast to try out, though, aren't they? Very unique. there are some dessert shops throughout the world that specialize in extremely sour desserts, with a handy bowl of berries at the front counter.

Just got my miracle fruit tablets in, and had an incredibly sweet SNPA. Grapfruit juice... awesome. My favorite has to be limes, like the freshest limeade you have ever tried. All the food retain their flavors, but the sour or bitterness is turned into sweet.