Interesting, the plants I grew from those '7 foliolar' seed (which, so far, have been 5 foliolar under grow lights) got overgrown before being planted outside so I nibbled some leaves and made a cup of tea. Both were bitter
Sort of distinctly bitter cucumber flavor with a hint of sweet. They were grown in potting soil under 'daylight' CFLs at that point.
According to
'Chemical and DNA authentication of taste variants of Gynostemma pentaphyllum herbal tea' its the non-bitter varieties that have ginsenosides and the bitter varieties that instead contain the closely related gypenosides. There was no overlap. So if the dammarane saponin fraction is a primary pharmacologically active component of Gynostemmas, which there is ample evidence for, there could easily exist pharmacological differences between bitter and non-bitter varieties.
There is also evidence that the polysaccharide fraction of Gynostemma has distinct pharmacological activity, raising the possibility of effects that span across the taste variants (and would not exist in saponin-only pills).
And who knows what effects its bitter cucurbitacins and other things might add.
Its a complicated little plant, lol
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Topic: Actually growing Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Read 20030 times)