The fresh berries do have an after taste to them, but the after taste is in the seeds. what I do is just mush them around in my mouth and not chew, or you can just let the berries sit overnight and the after taste will be gone the next day.

Sorry, I mis read your post, the berries that I have let dry, did not have a bitter taste..but then I have never bought any from the store either, so I can't compare.

Thank you mudflapper. My original intention was to eat the berries fresh rather than to dry them. It is good to know that the berries you dried did not have a bitter taste. Do the berries taste sweet at all to you?

Yea..not overly pleasant eating fresh...they have a ting of sweetness and are bitter, Chinese use them allot, [dried] in soups...good for your kidney's.
I can only eat a few berries fresh.....after that I want to throw up.

Some of the berries were still hanging on after a frost.

{{gwi:73080}}

My wife wants a plant, so she can put the berries in a smoothly.
This may be the way to go or eat them with Blueberries.
You could eat them with local Honey or nuts.
I have not eat them fresh.

Yeah, they're not great fresh... sorta like a sour-ish mix between a tomato and orange? I eventually pulled mine out...
-Glenn

Hi,
I have successfully grown my own goji (lycium Barbarum)berries in my garden. The fresh goji berries do not taste bitter, but if you harvest them before they ripe, they may taste a little bitter. The taste is sweet and very juicy. Great taste! I wish I can share you some picture and fresh berries. I will post pictres on my website http://www.go-goji.com

I grow goji berries in Chicago. They are very easy to grow. The taste is very sweet, but the aftertaste is horribly metallic bitter. They remind me of very sweet red pepper/tomato, or tomatillo/physalis when eaten fresh. I picked three handfulls this year, and couldn't finish the last one, i was feeling like throwing up. Now i pick them off, but not sure what to do with them - they are not good for fresh eating.

I love the dried berries in some vanilla yogurt, yum!!

I think the berries taste like what i would imagine the fruit of the tea plant to tast like, if it had fruit. If that makes sense lol

-Luke

Asians use these berries allot in sups, it taste fine this way.
But fresh is just like oosa said....sweet and not bad in the beginning, but the aftertaste is metallic bitter.
It seems my plant died out, have a bunch of cuttings from friend
for rooting, we do this in water, my wife with allot of green fingers can root anything in water...a bunch have roots.

I grow Goji berries in my backyard in southern california, and I can say for a fact that right off the vine, they taste spicy to me, plus a little bitter, barely even sweet. They thrive in the socal weather, and I bought these plants from a reputable dealer, StarkBros, they are the best to order from. Even at their ripest, when I pick them and pop them into my mouth, they immediately taste a little spicy and not very sweet at all. ALL dried Goji berries have added sugars of some sort. Real, organically grown, fresh Goji berries such as the ones I grow here, are naturally bitter and slightly spicy. The Goji is part of the nightshade family, The family also includes the potato, tomato, eggplant, belladonna, chili pepper, and tobacco. Goji tastes strange naturally, that's why people process the crap out of it so much all over the world. It's super good for you, but you won't like it fresh off the vine.

There are some selections with sweet taste http://www.clematis.com.pl/en/encyklopedia?view=plant&plantid=822 

Selection with yellow amber fruits http://www.clematis.com.pl/en/encyklopedia?nazwa=goji+amber+sweet

I tasted my

I tasted my fruit for the first time today. Sooo disappointed. Bitter not really a taste other than that. I will eat them so way. I plan on drying some. But am very unhappy with the fruit.

we buy dried gogi berries by the 10 lb from wilderness family naturals. Chewed they have a slight sweet taste, with interesting but not unpleasant aftertaste. We were excited to grow our own bushes to save money as dried are quite pricey.

But the fresh have been very bitter and unpleasant, as you said. I wonder if drying them would sweeten them up? need to try that.

I planted 3 bushes 2 years ago...plentiful! Some are sweet and most taste bitter...if I eat too many want to throwup. Trouble is they all dont ripen on the same vine at the same time...so when you pick them different levels of rippening taste. I bought then cause they are good for you...and wanted tp eat them off the vine when I was in my garden...forget that. Gues I pick them put um in salad. Maybe the more bitter the best for you. ..but gotta live through the killer taste

i aree goji are bitter fresh but drying them makes them more palatable. i mix them with other fruit. i also grow goumi berries which are also very prolific and are sweeter and bigger berries. related to autumn olive is also a super fruit.

I only had three berries on my plant this year, second season in the ground, they were very sweet and no after taste but maybe a person needs to eat more of them. This plant came from Bylands. Next year will be the tell tail.

Allot better to put into soups, that's how the Chinese do it, [chicken soup]. We freeze them.

Hearing about how healthy they were supposed to be, I wanted to like them, but I'm just not a fan of Goji berries.

most of the better for you super fruits just don't taste that great fresh. i have elderberry, goumi, aronia, seaberry, juneberry, honeyberry, autumn olive and black currant as well as the more popular blueberry, strawberry and raspberry. out of them about 5 of them are good off the bush. the rest have to be sweetened or processed with other fruit to make them taste good.

Mangosteen tastes good, but then again it is the bitter exterior dark red shell that has the health benefits. Acai can be good in a smoothie mixed with bananas.

Fresh pressed pomegranate juice tastes wonderful. I'm not talking about the pomegranate juice from the supermarket. Just don't press the red arils with the white rind, and don't use a blender because that will pulverize the tiny hard seeds and impart an off flavor.

I'm a fan of lingonberry juice too, but it can be very hard to find it without a lot of sugar or other sweet fruit juice added. Like cranberry juice with a softer profile, without the bitterness.

oh i have lingonberry also. just planed this year so no berries yet but had a few flowers come out. can't wait to try them!

The goji plant I bought has been loaded with berries this first year and is still producing. That is why I guess I am so unhappy the taste is horrible to me. I will never eat them. I live in zone 7. I also bought two fig trees this year. I put one in my yard living but not doing too well. The other one I put in a large pot and it has fruit on it. The one in the pot did so much better than the one I put in the ground.It is unbelievable the difference in them.

probably the soil? try adding a ring of compost and lightly rake in. bet it bounces back!

We've planted 4 plants last fall here in So Cal. They are growing fast now. Already harvested 2 big bowls off them at only 2.5' tall. 10 to 15' when mature? Yikes! Unpleasant taste fresh. Bought a small organic dried quantity from Whole foods. $32.99 per pound. Very tastey. Our grandson loved them. Attempted to dry our first batch. Blanched them and put in our convection oven to dry. Very uneven outcome. Some crispy, some just right, some still mushy. They tast like the store bought. Going to try sun dried on next batch. Will prefer this method over using power for dehydrator or oven. Interesting flavor. Not akin to anything. Guess you can say they taste like...Goji berries, lol

Tried dried Goji berries for the first time: No sweetness at all, nothing like tomatoes, very bland flavour, with a subtle aftertaste of tobacco, or you could describe it as like black tea. It's not very strong, but it makes them unpleasant. They are eatable, but you dont enjoy them. I can imagine them being ok in yoghurt, icecream, or other meals.

And then there's wine and jam making, which may be interesting.

I grow gojis and make jam from them. They are bitter and sweet when fresh, but somehow fine in smoothies and oatmeal. The jam is to die for, according to me and about half of my friends who have received jam gifts from me. Jam blends are great too, e.g. goji and rhubarb or goji and peach. Also you can use them in savory cooking, and they add extra flavor to hot sauce. I don't notice bitterness then either. The animals don't like them, leaving them for you to harvest. We get some stink bugs in them but the birds take care of those well enough. They ripen continuously from July to October here in Colorado just east of the Rockies. I get a new harvest every 3-5 days during that time. They need little water and love sunlight.

How do you deal with the thorns?

The thorns on my bushes are not too bad, somewhat short and thin and not too many. I get by by moving slowly and gently, holding up one frond at a time to pick from, with basket looped around my wrist. I have to move slowly anyway to avoid breaking branches, which happens easily, another problem.