The Bitterness Is the Point
Neem's flavour is the first thing most people want to get past. Chew a fresh leaf and the bitterness hits the back of the throat in a way that feels medicinal before you've thought about it. That sensation is not incidental. The bitter compounds in neem, principally nimbidin, nimbin, and quercetin, are the same molecules that interact with metabolic pathways. Bitterness in plants almost always signals alkaloids or terpenoids with biological activity. In neem, those terpenoids are doing specific work on the liver, the pancreas, and the body's glucose-handling machinery.
