Maple sap! a nice refreshing beverage

Cafe Society
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The Mrs. and I began tapping a few of our maple trees a couple of years ago, to supply ourselves with a personal stock of maple syrup. it’s been a fun hobby for the both of us, and makes us popular with friends and neighbors when we gift them with tiny bottles of our home made product.

But it was only just a couple of days ago that I decided to try the sap itself in an amount larger than the slightest taste. Standing over the stove ladling fresh sap into the boiling pot, I thought about getting something cold to drink. but right in the ladle before me was a scoop of sap fresh from the tree, still quite chilled. So down the hatch it went.

Damn, that was quite refreshing! Cold, clear water that was as tasty as any I’d ever had from spring or artesian well, plus a lovely faint hint of maple sweetness! I tossed off about 8 oz. of sap to slake my thirst.

A little research shows me that both fresh and pasteurized sap beverages have been popular in the past, and can even be obtained commercially in this modern era. A company called SAP! makes a variety of sparkling waters and sodas from maple and birch sap. Other places sell a noncarbonated sap product, while making a ton of dubious claims about the health benefits. :dubious:

Personally, I just enjoyed the taste a lot. Low calorie, tree-purified, it’s produced from the same water I grew up drinking as a child. Plus maple flavored, what a bonus!

Sadly the sap season is ending, and I do sort of prefer sending the sap to the boiler in order to obtain the delicious, delicious maple syrup for my groats, pancakes, waffles, brussel sprouts, and mahi-mahi (the Mrs. makes an amazing glaze for fish with chili powder and maple syrup!) but I do think I’ll continue to divert a quart or two every sap season for hydration and sipping purposes.

Any other sap suckers out there? :smiley:
ETA: whoops, meant to post in Cafe Society. I’ve notified the mods for a move

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Growing up, birch tree sap was commonly available for sale by street vendors. As you say, it was clear and refreshing, a hint of viscosity and sweetness. Haven’t thought about it in many years.

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Where did you grow up, that they offered birch tree sap on the streets?

I’ve had birch syrup but not birch sap.

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Straight from the evaporator, warm sap makes the most amazing cup of tea.

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Oh, please tell me the whole story was not just a setup for this punchline

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Back in the USSR. Didn’t know how lucky I were. :wink:

It was sold as a “Birch juice” if translated directly from the mother tongue. I was a kid in my single digits. Too many years ago to care to count.

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A couple years ago I started seeing this at Aldi. I love it, especially chilled after a workout. Not easy on the pocketbook, though. Link

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Moderator Action

Moving from IMHO to Cafe Society.

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I’ve never drunk a glass of sap, but I used to break little icicles off the maple trees and eat those. They were often frozen sap that dripped out of little cuts in the bark.

Now I want to try maple sap.

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Actually not. I didn’t think of that line until I was trying to figure out how to close my post.

Our maples gave us another 5 gallons of sap in the last day, so I do have a sufficient sap supply for sippin’!

And I would have spared you that, if not for your accusation.

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I bought some of this from Amazon (it was supposed to be available in grocery stores here, and no one had a clue what I was talking about.). It was very refreshing and mild.

I say this because when I was 12, I spent a summer on a family’s little farm in Quebec, and they tapped their maple trees with spigots and tin buckets. I will never forget being offered a sip from the bucket of maple sap - vegetal, bland, yet a tang of maple flavor…I was blessed being able to visit that farm.

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The little old French-Canadian lady who ran our church library would tell us stories about grabbing handfuls (handsful ?) of frozen sap from maple trees with tons of ants in it. She said it tasted like frozen lemonade. The first time she tried it her older brother had to tease her into it. She was little – like five years old – so based on her age when she told the story, this could have been before the turn of the 20th century.

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I had fresh maple sap for my dinner beverage. A nice accompaniment. The rest of it is almost boiled down to syrup consistency now.

Groats, various yeast mites, 30 year old cheese, and now tree sap. My diet is getting more and more eclectic.

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Yep. A friend in the burbs had a tree big enough to tap, and she gave me a cup right out of the tree. Pretty sure it was the coldest liquid I’ve ever consumed in my life. But it was sooooo delicious and refreshing. I may have waxed a bit poetical about it.

She sent me home with a quart mason jar full, and it was still delightful, but not quite as amazing as that cup right out of the tree.

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I think you can still buy this in Russian supermarkets or aptekas, though I never have. I believe it’s high in vitamin C, and is used to prevent scurvy.

Also back in the USSR, there used to be vending machines on the street where you could buy flavored soda water for two kopeks a glass. One of your choices was maple flavor.

The glass you drank from was actually made of glass. You were expected to rinse it out with a jet of fresh water when you were done and leave it for the next customer to use.

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I once went on a sap-collecting tour in Wisconsin, where we were all able to sample fresh maple sap before it was boiled down into syrup.

Tree sap reflects the composition of the local soil. I was surprised that the fresh sap we sampled (not far from Milwaukee) had a distinctly metallic taste.

This might not be uncommon. Looking at a bottle of 100% pure Canadian maple syrup, I see it has a **very **high manganese content.

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Sure, I sucked my share of sap.

We had a small syrup making operation when I was a lad.

All good but my favorite was maple syrup on corn muffins.

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Spruce beer is popular in Quebec but that’s not the same as sap.

Mix maple syrup 50-50 with cream and try that on your pancakes next time?

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I’ve used maple sap for homebrew beer instead of water. I always love asking strangers at sugar shacks- “Hey, can I buy 5 gallons of sap?” “What are you gonna do with 5 gallons of syrup?”

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Please don’t tell us next that you’re sampling raw bats, snakes, and pangolins.