Katemfe Fruit, the fruit of a plant species that naturally and extensively grows throughout the hot, humid West African rain forest. The plant absorbs sunlight and energy with its unique broad oval leaves. Its Purplish-pink flowers are at the base of a swollen petiole, but usually only 2, 3, or 4 (rarely greater than 4) of these can bear mature fruits. *
Katemfe Fruit, covered with plant debris, grows on short stalks close to the ground with bright-red color when fully ripe. The locals have used the fruit as sweets for hundreds of years. This attributes to a natural sweet-tasting proteins, called Thaumatin, which were extracted from its arils.
Known in the past
Thaumatin is one of the sweetest substances known to man, being at least 5,000 times sweeter than sucrose at threshold concentrations and 2,000-3,000 times sweeter at the normal use levels of sucrose (6-10%).** And it is found that thaumatin does not elevate blood glucose or affect body weight. ***
Re-discovery
Thaumatin functions primarily as a powerful flavor enhancer. It was introduced to Japan in 1979 and has been used to enhance and improve the flavor of milk products. (Refer to Table 1. For some examples in Japan. ***)
Reference:
*Michael Witty, John D. Higginbotham, 1994, THAUMATIN, ISBN: 0-8493-5196-0.
**George Charalambous, George Inglett, 1981, THE QUALITY OF FOODS AND BEVERAGES, Chemistry and Technology, ISBN: 0-12-169101-2 Volume 1.
***Warid Khayata, Ahmad Kamri, Rasha Alsaleh, 2016, International Journal of Academic Scientific Research ISSN: 2272-6446 Volume 4, Issue 2 (May - June 2016), PP 36-42