Miracle Fruit Makes (Almost) Everything Delicious

Miracle fruit, a berry from Africa, has a strange effect: After eating it, everything sour suddenly tastes sweet.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on May 31 2010

Willy Wonka came up with some pretty cool confectionary creations: Non-melting ice cream. The Everlasting Gobstopper. Edible wallpaper. And who wouldn’t have loved to try his Three-Course-Dinner-Gum? (Though we probably wouldn’t have been so wild about turning into a giant blueberry, a la Violet Beauregard.)

But did you know there’s a nature-made treat that rivals any of Wonka’s wild concoctions? It’s the miracle fruit, a berry from West Africa with an amazing effect: When you eat a piece of the strange fruit, it makes everything sour taste sweet for the next hour or so.

That means, with the magical effects of the miracle fruit in place, you can scarf down lemon slices as if they were gummy drops. The tang of goat cheese turns to sugary sweetness. Even a bitter beer could be mistaken for a milkshake, one miracle fruit-eater told The Wall Street Journal.

Though miracle fruit has been around for hundreds of years, it’s recently become a cult phenomenon: All around the globe, curious foodies are seeking out the exotic berry and holding miracle fruit parties, where they serve up the berries along with plenty of lemons, limes, and other tart foods for a totally one-of-a-kind flavor sensation.

A word to the wise, though: Don’t follow a piece of miracle fruit up with a slice of cake, or you may never come down from the sugar high.

Filed under: General Interest, Science, Weird,

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