Maple Syrup

Maple Syrup

Amber coloured syrup.

Maple syrup is a flavoured syrup from the sap of certain maple trees, tapped mainly during early spring over a 4-8 week period, when the stored winter starch in the roots and trunk rises in the tree and is converted to sugar.
Maple syrup was first collected, made and used by the indigenous North Americans.
Quebec, Canada, produces three quarters of the world’s maple syrup, with Canada exporting over US$141 million worth of maple syrup every year.
To collect maple syrup sap, holes are bored in the maple trees; special taps are inserted into the holes; and the sap drips into the bucket underneath or into tubes that go direct to the processing building.
To produce maple syrup, the sap is boiled to remove most of the water content, the liquid is then filtered to remove any small sugar crystals, and what remains is maple syrup.

Although maple syrup is mostly sucrose and water, with its sugar content being over 60%, it contains a significant amount of manganese and zinc.
Maple syrup is most often used on pancakes, waffles, and French toast, although it is also used as a sweetener and flavouring in baked goods, drinks and other food items.
Maple syrup was the main food sweetener in North America and the United States in the 1600s and 1700s, and remained so until after the American Civil War in the 1860s, when cane sugar became more cheaply, and readily available.
Approximately 40 litres (10.5 US gallons) of maple syrup sap, makes 1 litre (0.26 US gallons) of maple syrup.
Imitation maple syrup is also produced, and usually doesn’t contain any maple sap syrup, or very little, and is an inferior product and generally much cheaper than real maple syrup.