FORT LAUDERDALE - It was counterintuitive — a lime with no pucker.

"Tastes like candy, doesn't it?" says Curtis Mozie, his eyes wide as a mad scientist's.

Wowzers.

Suck a while on one of Mozie's homegrown red berries, which are nicknamed "miracle fruit," and everything sour that follows turns sweet.
 

"Wait, you've got to try one more thing," the 64-year-old says as he gets a jug of vinegar.

Mozie pours the pungent liquid into two small cups. He hands them out like shots at a bar.

"Cheers," he says. Like Tang with a kick.

It's the sweet taste of success.

Starting with one tree in his backyard more than 12 years ago, Mozie today has an orchard of more than a thousand that has let him carve out a successful niche market catering mainly to people intrigued by the berry's taste magic. The red berry is mostly seed, but the scant amount of slightly sweet pulp changes taste for up to two hours.

He says he ships 3,000 berries a week, mostly to distributors and other customers in New York but also to Finland, France and Montreal.

Cancer treatment centers have contacted him, wondering if the fruit might help induce appetite in chemotherapy patients, Mozie says. Picky eaters and diabetics are also possible beneficiaries, he adds.

Last month, The New York Times mentioned Mozie's business in an article on taste-tripping parties where attendants munch berries and then see how different foods taste. Two days after the article's publication, the former postal and Broward elections worker says he received $60,000 worth of orders — four times his profit from last year.

It's a lot of attention for what was once considered an obscure novelty fruit.

The berry, whose scientific name is Synsepalum dulcificum, has a glycoprotein called miraculin that changes taste, scientists say. The bush or tree grows up to 5 feet tall and is native to West Africa.

Billy Hopkins, whose Tropical Fruit Nursery in Davie sold Mozie his first miracle fruit tree more than a decade ago, said he has seen no negative health effects from eating the berries, except for a few people who experienced slight nausea or an allergic reaction. Chugging a gallon of vinegar is not a good idea, no matter how sweet. "Demand is rising for the trees. We've probably sold 10 times more miracle fruit plants this year than in years past," Hopkins said.

Business has been so good for Mozie that he had to suspend orders after demand grew too quickly. He's contacted a grower in Ghana to ship him 50,000 frozen berries.

Mozie sells his berries for $3 each. More than a year ago, he charged only a dollar. Today, prices can reach $5 on eBay.

Locally, unless you have your own tree or know someone who does, there's only one way to get the fruit: Mozie's Web site, www.miraclefruit man.com.

Hopkins, 44, said the fruit has been available in the country for more than three decades but bounded into the spotlight last February when Martha Stewart featured it on one of her shows.

A month later, The Wall Street Journal highlighted Mozie in a front-page article.