Flavor Tripping - The taste altering Miracle Fruit

Tina and I were invited to a "Flavor Tripping" Party by Jennie Wang. At this party, the participants are granted one miracle berry which, after chewing and sloshing around the tongue for a minute or two, alters the way your taste buds react to sour/acidic foods for a little while (about 15-30 minutes). Instead of registering as sour, they register as sweet.

We popped the fruit into our mouths.

Then we chewed it into a pulp and swirled it around for about two minutes. It tasted slightly tart, like a really mild cranberry.


Then I spat out the seed and went to the table of food and grabbed a lime. It tasted slightly sweet and quite sour. The lemon was about the same. I was a tad disappointed, was it not working for me?

After sampling a variety of different foods and not noticing a significant difference between my taste memory of the food and what I was experiencing, I was starting to be pretty sure that either the fruit had no affect on my taste buds or that it had a really mild effect. It did seem implausible that all the fruits would be decently sweet (I usually find most strawberries aren't sweet enough - but these were fine) but how was I to know if they weren't just exceptionally tasty fruit? I wish I had tasted everything before using my miracle fruit.

After tasting the Greek yogurt and thinking it didn't taste sweet at all and just like Greek yogurt, I mentioned my predicament to a couple gentlemen set up to sell miracle berries in concentrated tablet form. The handed me a tablet that was made of concentrated miracle berry juice (from three berries) and corn starch and molded into a tablet. I followed their directions and crushed it with my molars, spread it over my tongue, and waited for it to dissolve. Since the chemical found in miracle berries only binds to taste buds, swallowing a pill is ineffective. Also, drinking lots of water or alcohol after eating a berry will quickly diminish the effects.

Once the tablet dissolved, it totally worked. The yogurt that I previously tasted was sweet - like a Yoplait or Dannon sweetened yogurt. The lime was like sugar and lime juice — more like candy or lime syrup than anything else. It still retained some sourness, but was really sweet. For some foods it worked well, and for some it did nothing (raw ginger still tasted exactly like raw ginger).

It was a great event - we met a bunch of people who also enjoy food and got to experience a side of food that I've only previously seen on TV or read about.