Have you ever just had the urge to eat a lemon? Not like putting lemon of your food, but actually cut up a lemon and just bite into it like an apple? Most likely not, but either did I. That was until I read about synsepalum dulcificum, or the miracle berry. Grown in West Africa, as the name suggests, this berry has a miraculous power. After eating one of these magical berries, your taste buds temporarily transform and turn sour into sweet.

Immediately after hearing about the fruit's powers I wanted to try out this natural phenomenon for myself. However I wasn’t just going to pop some random berries from the internet in my mouth before doing some research. Apparently these berries originated in West Africa which may account for why nobody I know had ever heard of this food. I wanted to find out what was actually in the berry to make sure I wasn’t harming myself by ingesting them. The berry largely consists of sugar and a carbohydrate molecule called miraculin. Miraculin is what is responsible for affecting your taste buds and impairing your ability to taste sour. The science behind how miraculin works is pretty interesting. In your mouth, the low pH miraculin binds to receptor proteins in your mouth and prohibits your taste buds from tasting sour foods. Apparently the berry would last for one hour until your saliva naturally washed the berry out of your mouth. I couldn’t see any negative side effects of trying these berries so I went ahead and ordered some tablets with the berries extract using the help of Amazon Prime (the real berries were too expensive and a little too sketchy for my liking).

So the tiny package of miracle berry tablets arrived at my house promptly two days after I ordered them. They came in a gum like container where you popped each football shaped tablet out of a little aluminum pouch. So i called up my friends and we picked a house to have all of us try these berry tablets out. I told everyone to bring at least one lemon and if they wanted, another sour food or drink. When everyone arrived at the house, we sliced up all the fruit. This included lemons, limes, green apples, and grapefruit. We also had lemon extract, vinegar, orange juice. I read the directions on the box and then everyone took their tablet and put it in their mouth. The directions said to swirl it around in your mouth until it was fully dissolved. You were not supposed to chew on it because apparently that dulls the effect. As soon as I put the tablet into my mouth, i noticed its strange taste. It was extremely subtle but very unique. It did not taste like fruit or anything like one could imagine. In fact, we agreed that it almost tasted like cardboard. The box did not say how long it would take for them to dissolve, but it was longer than any of us expected. Everyone just waited out what was about ten to fifteen minutes until the tablets were out of our mouths. It was time for the fun to begin

Everyone grabbed a slice of lemon and got ready to just chomp into it, ready for whatever outcome could happen. We simultaneously tried it and everyone's first reaction was confusion. Nobody could taste the sour in the lemon. After a group vote we determined the lemon tasted like lemonade. Although this was what everyone knew was coming, no one was prepared for how weird it was to be eating a lemon. You could see yourself putting a lemon into your mouth yet the taste did not correspond with your brain. We were all eager to try some more of the products we had. After trying all the fruit you realized that they all just tasted like candy versions of their flavor. It was interesting to say the least. The overall weirdest thing to eat or drink during this experience had to be the vinegar. It couldn't be possible that this acidic liquid could not taste sour. As you would drink the vinegar you could smell it and cringe at its piercing like scent. As you took a sip, the smell completely differed from the actual taste. The vinegar did not taste good, but I was able to drink a substantial amount. That is because it was not sour in the slightest.

Overall, i thought the product worked well and fun to use. i would highly recommend that anyone curious about try it just to have this amazing experience.