Curculin

Curculin, also called neoculin, is a sweet protein complex discovered and isolated in 1990 from the fruit of Curculigo latifolia, a plant native to Southeast Asia, with a related variant found at much lower concentration in Curculigo capitulata. It is unusual among sweet proteins in that it not only tastes sweet on its own but also has taste-modifying activity, making water and sour solutions taste sweet after it is consumed. It is highly potent, measured at roughly four hundred thirty to two thousand seventy times sweeter than sucrose by weight, with the sweetening effect lasting five to ten minutes depending on acidity, but it degrades above fifty degrees Celsius, limiting it to fresh foods and tabletop use, and it is approved as a food additive only in Japan.