my stevia plants taste like crap!

    I've been using Stevia to sweeten my tea and cereal for a couple of
months now, and when I saw some plants at a local store marked down to a
buck, I decided to plant 6 of them out by the mailbox.

   When I took a couple of leaves and chewed them, however, I was left
spitting out a very vile tasting green substance for a couple of
minutes.  Only later did I truly seem to taste the sweet taste I was
used to, as a lingering aftertaste.

   Does this horrid taste go away if you dry the leaves?

 

There seems to be some variation in the flavor of different plants, or
it could be the way they are cultivated, of maybe a dog uses them for
his toilet. Mine taste fine to me, but the sweetness does take a few
seconds to show itself.
--
- Billy
America is not broke. The country is awash in wealth and cash.
It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the
greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks
and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
<http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/mar/10/michael-moore
/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/>

You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term,
and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street. That's all it would
take. Just once.

 

I noticed that my youngest stevia leaves were uniformly sweet, but they get
very bitter as they grow.  If you eat too much, you taste bitter instead of
sweet.  I did exactly what you did once and popped a whole mature leaf into
my mouth.  Yikes.  But nibbling it in tiny doses brought out the sweet.  A
little stevia goes a LOONNNNNNG way.
--S.

 none@none.net says...


 

There are different varieties of Stevia.


Probably not. My read of the nature of 'glycoside' and looking at
reports around the web, including competitors' claims and counter-claims
suggest that the bitterness is persistent.

One (Chinese) wholesaler says they remove the stem and as much vein from
the leaves as possible and that makes their product better and less
bitter.

Richters has developed 'Crazy Sweet' which isn't bitter and lives up to
its name. On the downside we've found it a very easy plant kill and have
yet to bring a plant to maturity.

http://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=X6031
&show=&prodclass=Herb_and_Vegetable_Plants&cart_id‘57068.29803

http://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=X6030
&show=&prodclass=Herb_and_Vegetable_Plants&cart_id‘57068.29803

 

I was able to "over-winter" a Stevia plant under lights for its first
years, but I lost it the second winter. I'm dealing with a marginal sun
light situation (about 6 hr./day), but have had no problems growing
Stevia from seed.
--
- Billy
America is not broke. The country is awash in wealth and cash.
It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the
greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks
and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
<http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/mar/10/michael-moore
/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/>

You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term,
and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street. That's all it would
take. Just once.