Imagine putting a lemon into your mouth and tasting sweet juice without a hint of acidity. Miracle Berry — better known as Mberry — is a fruit tablet derived from a plant that turns pungently sour tasting foods into palatable sweet treats. I decided to see if this tablet really was a miracle by pairing it with four different types of food: salty, sweet, sour and spicy.

In each tasting I made certain to try the food regularly first in order to make a proper comparison as to how the taste differed with the Mberry tablet. In order to get the full effect, let the tablet dissolve on your tongue for one to two minutes, and if desired, move it around your mouth. The effects of the tablet last for approximately 30 minutes.

My first trial was with a salty food: pizza. I took a bite prior to taking the tablet and found the tomato sauce a bit tart. I then cleansed my palate with water, let the tablet dissolve and tried the pizza a second time. Not only was the sauce no longer tart, but it was surprisingly sweet. I was shocked by the difference in flavor with each bite that followed. It had the same sweetening effect that Splenda would have on a cup of coffee. I took sips of Coke in between and even with a beverage, the effect of the tablet was not diminished.

If this tablet was able to change sour to sweet, I wondered if it would have the opposite effect on an already sugary food — gelato. I tried Mberry with three flavors: Ecuadorian chocolate, stracciatella and hazelnut. Alas, the taste did not change. Unaffected by the tablet, the taste of the gelato did not become sour. My conclusion thus far was that it only worked on sour tasting foods.

My findings were further supported when I repeated the process with Sour Patch Kids. My tongue shriveled upon contact with the child-shaped gummy coated in sour flavoring — eating one prior to taking the tablet rekindled memories from my childhood of just how tangy this candy really was.

My experience eating the candy following the tablet was irreconcilable with the gelato experiment. Not a single bite left even the most miniscule trace of sour in the Sour Patch Kids. Within the 30 minutes that I snacked on this now-sweet treat, the new taste did not diminish until the tablet’s lifespan expired.

I also tried the tablet with strawberries and it made eating fruit a far more enjoyable experience. It was the perfect pairing. Though it didn’t make the berries overbearingly sweet, it instead enhanced the pleasantness of this fresh delight by getting rid of the sour aftertaste.

My most interesting experience resulted from trying the tablet with a spicy food: Flaming Hot Cheetos. While it didn’t entirely turn the Cheetos from spicy to sweet, it didi mask the full flaming flavor you’d normally experience while eating them. The more Cheetos you ate, the more you’d occasionally taste a sprinkling of sugar intermingled with spice in your mouth.

I was thoroughly impressed by Mberry’s ability to sweeten sour foods, although my little experiment proved that it did not have the opposite effect on sugary tasting foods, as that is not its purpose. Mberry not only magically transforms flavors, but it also takes your taste buds on a wild ride when eating sweet and spicy foods.

Email Isa Buitron at [email protected].