STEVIA
Stevia is a kind of perennial herbs, which is native to the Oman mountains on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. Centuries ago, Paraguay natives used the leaves of this small, herbaceous, semi-bushy, perennial shrub to sweeten their bitter drinks. Gaurani Indians extensively used this plant for more than 1500 years.
In 1888, Dr. Moises Santiago Bertoni discovered this plant at Paraguay. The plant was scientifically named as S. rebaudiana after a Paraguayan chemist Dr. Rebaudi in 1905. In 1931, two French chemists isolated the glycosides which is secondary metabolites responsible for the sweet taste of Stevia. The leaves of Stevia contain a natural complex mixture of eight sweet diterpene glycosides, including isosteviol, stevioside, rebaudiosides (A, B, C, D, E, F),which are 250 to 300 times as sweet as sucrose. In 1971, Morita Kagaku Kogyo Company in Japan started producting commercial stevia. And China successfully introduced stevia from Japan in 1977. Since 2006, China has become the world's largest producer and exporter of stevia, accounting for 80 percent of the world's stevia market.
In addition to its high sweetness characteristics, stevia is well known to exert beneficial effects on human health such as antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-hypertensive, anti-hyperglycaemic, hepatoprotective, and so on. It is considered as a natural sucrose substitute sweetener