I was given a plant, no name. It was sweet in early summer but with little flavor. Now like yours it's just awful. Bitter astringent I don't know maybe both, yuck.

Perhaps you were tricked, like "red delicious" and "hope and change"

I have three goji berry plants. The first berries to come out were sweet with little or no flavor. As the summer has progressed and larger and more numerous berries were produced, the results were much different.
You have to gather about 20 or 30 to get an amount to taste.
The taste was at best horrible and will be left for the birds.
I will be digging them up and placing them in the compost pile
after the berries stop producing for the birds.

Greendumb, sorry to hear that your goji tastes horrible. Do you know what your variety is? The ones I planted a few years back was 'crimson star' and now they produce quite delicious berries. I gave a handful to a few people and they were amazed how good it tasted. But not for 'sweet lifeberry' that I just planted.

I just ate my first 'Sweet Lifeberry" today. It was ok, kind of a cross between a very mild hot pepper and a tomato. No bitterness though.

I purchased my Goji plants from Michigan Bulb Co.
and no variety name was given.

Thanks jjd_z7a_nj, you are lucky, maybe there is a hope for me, perhaps it will be better next year.
greendumb, yours look like crimson star.

I haven't gotten any berries in 3 years from my Gogi's since the pine mice are eating their roots and slowing growth. I have eaten dried goji berries and they were tasty but I don't know the variety.

Got rid of the pine mice (for now) that were eating the roots of my Gogi plants. I have now gotten a few berries. They are sweet with a very slight bitter after taste. I don't know if they were fully ripe but I did like the taste and my wife liked them also. The variety is Crimson Star.

I have read that you must wait until the calyxes have turned brown before the berries are actually ripe. Perhaps you've not waited long enough before picking the berries.

Thanks mary-littlerockar but I agree with RedSun. I have another variety (crimson) and it's never been bitter.

May I ask, where do you find these varieties of berry plants or seed?

I bought them from a few places, mostly online. You can Google the name 'Life Berry'. I don't think it's worth the money though. If you want to grow them from seeds, I can harvest some for you next summer.

Wondering if the goji berry bitterness was ever figured out. I picked up an 1-gallon "Goji Berry" plant at The Home Depot this past spring, and so far all the berries I've dried or tasted fresh taste bitter and full of seeds. Does hot weather (Austin, Texas) make these things bitter? I haven't planted it--still in the pot it came in so I'm assuming its not the soil pH. Anybody grow Crimson Star in Central Texas and have a different result? That variety was touted in this thread as being sweet, but wondering if it matters what part of the country you're growing it in....

1. Most have no-name/unnamed varieties that will never taste good.

2. People lump Lycium barbarum and Lycium chinense together as "goji berries."

3. Climate conditions likely plays a factor in final taste