What if there were a fruit that, when you eat it, changes the way you experience tastes. If makes lemons as sweet as an orange, and just as easy to eat. Well there is such a thing. And I have tried it. For you! Well, more accurately, I was at a party on Saturday night, and the host had bought a bag of Miracle Fruit. Whilst this might be a rather prosaic name, it does have the advantage of being accurate. The miracle fruit is a small red berry about the size of a fresh coffee bean, and is native to West Africa. It doesn’t actually taste of much itself, but contains protein molecules called miraculin (no, that doesn’t sound real to me, either, but there we go) that alter the way your taste buds react to sourness. You pop it in your mouth and hold it there for a few minutes (careful not to swallow the seed!), and then, well, the tasting begins!

Here are things we tried:

Lemons

We tried fresh sliced lemons. Almost all of the sourness is removed, and the lemon tastes a little like a really fresh sorbet, except more juicy than icy.

Fennel

The fennel retains its aniseed flavor, but another layer of sweetness is added, meaning that it tastes something like licorice, except a little sweeter. It’s actually pretty delicious.

Hot Sauce

Well, it still tastes hot! The miracle fruit     doesn’t effect the experience of spiciness, but it does smooth the sourness of the vinegar in the hot sauce, so it’s a lot like eating a candied chili pepper. If such a thing existed. A bit odd, this one.

Raw Ginger

A friend took a bite out of a ginger root and ran out to the kitchen to cool his mouth with water (which just tastes of water, incidentally). Something that I hadn’t realized was that the earthiness in root ginger must contain some sort of sourness, because it’s completely removed, and just tastes of sugar. Hot, spicy sugar.

Wheat Beer

You know that sweet smell that you get from bread, before it bakes, or that pervades a brewery (if you’ve never been to a brewery to see how beer is made, you should)? The subtleties are removed from the beer, but it does taste a little like drinking sweet, yeasty dough. Not an unpleasant sensation.

Wine (red and white)

Have you ever tried wine from Bulgaria? Whilst, I’m sure, they create many passable wines, I’m yet to have been able to find one. Every one I’ve had tastes sweet and a little bit musty. This seems to be the result of drinking wine after eating the miracle fruit. If you’re going to have a party, I’d recommend having beer with the tastings, rather than wine. Though, of course, it’s worth trying it, to see what works and doesn’t.

Sauerkraut

Well, it didn’t taste sauer any more, is for sure. Actually, it didn’t really taste of much at all, to me.

Durian Fruit

Not even the Miracle Fruit can make the durian taste edible. Like eating a mouthful of baby sick.

So, as I’m sure you can tell, there’s a pattern. Sweet things taste sweeter, sour things taste sweeter, and well, everything tastes sweeter. It is really interesting, though, to see the way that your expectations are defeated when you bite into something, and I’d recommend giving the miracle fruit a try.

Just don’t eat durian.