Stevia is a perennial herb. It is also part of the Asteraceae family with over 200 different species of herbs and shrubs. The most commonly used form of stevia is from the S. rebaudiana species. Stevia leaves are mainly harvested for their sweetness of their leaves. Powder is extracted from these sweet leaves and used as a non-caloric sweetener. It 300 times sweeter than sucrose! S. rebaudiana from Brazil and Paraguay.
It was first classified by Moises Santiago Bertoni in 1899. The sweetness of the stevia leaves were first isolated in 1909, then a stevioside compound was extracted in 1931, then even sweeter compounds were extracted in the 1970s. (Lemus-Mondaca, Vega-Galvez, Zura-Bravo, & Ah-hen, 2012).
