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Product:  Stevita, powder and liquid
Here are the results of our first stevia product tests. We have distributed stevia products to various testers and will continue to update this page as the results come in.

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Stevita Powder and Liquid
Both products are made in Brazil and certified organic.

Price
Stevita Liquid - 1.35 fluid ounces $4.95 U.S.
Stevia Powder - 2.8 ounces $$7.65 U.S.

Serving sizes and servings per container
Serving size Stevita Liquid - 1/8 teaspoon. 64 servings per container

Stevia Powder - 1/2 teaspoon.  66 servings per container

Ingredients / Calories
Stevita Liquid - 15 mg stevia rebaudiana leaves
Other ingredients, distilled water  and grapefruit seed extract as a preservative. Calories per serving 0

Stevia powder - 96% concentration from stevia leaves
Other ingredients, tapioca maltodextrin (bulking agent), silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent). Calories per serving 0

Coffee/Tea sweetener
We added two drops of the Stevita liquid to a 6 ounce cup of coffee and found it to be sufficiently sweet.  This amount of sweetener  was equal to about 1 teaspoon to 1.5 teaspoons of sugar.  Even at this low rate we could detect an "aftertaste" and a slight "herbal" flavor.

One tester has a real sweet tooth.  He put 5 drops in his 6 ounce cup of coffee. This is very sweet and at this rate the aftertaste was very pronounced. 

It is too early in our testing to reach any conclusions other than it is a sugar substitute for people who have dietary reasons to eliminate or reduce sugar from their diet.  If you do not like the artificial sweeteners then you may not like stevia either.

Reader Reviews
November 26, 2001, from Diane Smith:
"I use stevia and tupelo honey exclusively to sweeten.
With stevia, I use the packets, like artificial sweetener packets.
For an entire cake to replace all sugar I use 3 packets.

I found I was using way too much stevia initially. For coffee, it is a
few grains, not a full packet. The same holds true for those who like orange juice sweetened. I use a portion of the packet.  When cutting back further and further in the amounts the herbal taste disappears.

I made a banana cake from a stevia recipe book. It was a bit dry for I tried to also make it non-fat. I used 3 packets of stevia for the entire cake. Then I made a pineapple sauce, cut fresh mango and sprinkled coconut over the cake. My guests loved it.  When I first tasted the cake fresh from the oven, it did not taste sweet. As it sat overnight, the sweetness became more and more pronounced."

Glossary
Stevia is the common name for stevia rebaudiana, an herb used as a replacement for sugar or other non-nutritionative sweeteners. The resulting extract from the stevia plant is roughly ten times sweeter than sugar.

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