Miracle Fruit - Sour to Sweet
by Larry Atkins
We all like the unique properties of miracle fruit. First and foremost, afficionados usually induce their guest to taste the small, sweet miracle fruit berry, usually liked for its sweet taste. The fun begins when the taster is told of a particular variety of sweet tasting calamondin, eugenia stipitata or key lime in their collection. The taster is amazed at the new variety’s taste and then asks for bud wood. Some people offer the fruit and then a beer. It could kill your beer appetite for an hour or more.
Now that we have gotten over our pranks, we settle down to the good stuff like helping a friend on chemotherapy remove the metallic taste and return the desire for food, as well as overcome a trying experience. Some people like to enhance the poor quality of strawberries or other fruit.
The miracle fruit has been experimented with for years to use as the sugary, sweet enhancer for dieters. The problem was how to increase the shelf life of the product.
Rare fruit member Dave Hartmann and his family nursery believed in the miracle fruit, producing some 9000 plants for sale.
The difficult plant to locate is usually found only in a collector’s garden. They marketed the plant for a few years with limited results. None were grown on a commercial basis until the Japanese bought about 8000 plants from Hartmann’s Nursery.
Local miracle fruit (synsepalum dulcifocum) champion and grower member Dave Hartmann had told his family about the plant.
According to an associated press article I read, a Japanese firm has found a way to freeze-dry the fruit, extending its useful life. Hence, a steady supply of miracle fruit berries.
The Miracle Fruit Café in Tokyo, Japan offers tempting and formally sour desserts to the calorie denied or dieters.
I am guessing, but I think Dave’s miracle fruit plants will soon be the rave. Kind of like how dragon fruit was imported, improved and marketed by Korea.
Better give your plants TLC!
Photos courtesy of TopTropicals.com
