Miracle fruit: your experiences, and where to buy in UK.

September 21, 2008 12:05 PM

Miracle fruit: your experience, and recommendations on where to buy from in the UK.

Ever since I heard of miracle fruit I've been wanting to try them out. But since I'm a bit wary of ingesting random berries bought over the Internet, I would like to hear of your experiences in acquiring and consuming them. Especially, I would like recommendations on reputable/tried places to buy them from in the UK.

posted by Zarkonnen to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

Not in the U.K., but previously.
posted by Trekoni at 12:31 PM on September 21, 2008

Best answer: Firebox.com are UK-based and reputable (I've bought from them in the past with no problems).

They don't sell the fruit itself, but do sell tablets containing the active ingredient:
http://www.firebox.com/product/2167/Miracle-Fruit-Tablets
posted by metaBugs at 12:41 PM on September 21, 2008

Best answer: got mine through firebox. They're pretty much what you'd expect. Worth at least one try. Make sure to only get foods that have some sweetness, but have it masked by another, stronger flavor. For example, lemons on miracle fruit are better than any orange you've ever tasted.
posted by ewingpatriarch at 1:25 PM on September 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I recently tried some miracle fruit while travelling in Japan. We did it ghetto style, just picking things up in the supermarket we thought would be fun.

Notable foods that I can remember were grapefruit juice, dill pickles, the brine of said dill pickles, straight lemon juice concentrate (get a lot, that one's a winner) and Tabasco sauce. Apparently strong stout beer or goat cheese are good too, but we didn't get a chance to try those out.
posted by tracert at 2:16 PM on September 21, 2008

We just had a flavor tripping party on Friday, but we used the tablets, not the berries themselves. Lemons are indeed awesome, cheap beer tastes much better, strawberries are amazing, grapefruit is also sweeter. Some people tried tabasco, and enjoyed it, I can't say how it is first hand, though. Things that were pickled (kimchee, ginger, pickles, olives) weren't really changed too much.

Also, I hear they're cheaper on ebay, so you might want to look there, too.
posted by theRussian at 2:20 PM on September 21, 2008

One piece of advice, provide some other food while your at it... my stomach was full of grapefruit, lemon, lime, sour kids, apples, and other acidic stuff and it can really take a toll on you.
posted by furtive at 2:38 PM on September 21, 2008

seconding grapefruit juice. Tastes better than punch.
posted by ewingpatriarch at 2:47 PM on September 21, 2008

Just make sure you buy the berries or the pills and not the plant from which they come. That sucker grows very, very slowly. It isn't worth the time, unless you live in Florida or some warm and humid environment where you could just plant a few in an area of your yard with acidic soil and wait a few years. Mine was about a foot high two years or so ago (shortly after the original post on mefi) and is now only a few inches taller with no signs of any flowers or berries in the near future. However, it loves the hot, humid Jersey summers but does not seem to like the dry weather inside during the winter.
posted by caddis at 3:20 PM on September 21, 2008

I was disappointed. I bought some of the tablets and had a taste test at work. Four of us tried it and nobody was terribly impressed. Lemons and grapefruit did taste sweeter, but not mind-blowingly so. The problem with those was that we could still taste the sourness/acidity on our throats and such, so it was a bit confusing. We couldn't taste a difference with the beer or cheese. Two of us chomped away on whole jalapeño peppers and couldn't feel the slightest bit of spiciness, so that was a winner. It also made plain yogurt palatable.

All in all, not worth the money.
posted by Khalad at 8:32 PM on September 21, 2008

This is unlikely to sound like much help but:
I purchased 5g freeze-dried from miraclefruit.co.uk and it took a ridiculous amount of time to turn up (2 months+) due to stock issues. It came as the whole lot in a small seal-top bag stapled to guidance notes. I found the customer service through email reasonably prompt but due to the length of time my order took to arrive, I wouldn't use them again.

I haven't consumed it yet so cannot comment on your other questions. I intend to experiment with it in cocktails at some point though.
posted by 999 at 3:46 PM on September 23, 2008