MAPLE SYRUP

Maple trees must be about 40 years old before they can be tapped. The bird's-eye maple, one of over 75 varieties of maple tree, only produces sap during a period of four to six weeks during March and April at the start of the Canadian spring.

At this time the forests are still covered by several feet of snow .Harvesting the sap becomes a cold and arduous task.

There are three categories of sap identifiable by their colour. The first phase of the harvest is the most abundant and contains more sugars and fewer minerals. This is called Harvest A, and is of a light amber colour and widely used in cookery. Harvest B is the middle phase and is used as a sweetener in the specialist food market and is of medium amber colour. Harvest C is the final collection of the year and has the smallest yield. The sap is dark amber in colour and of superior quality; it is highly concentrated, less sweet and with the highest mineral content. The sap is turned into syrup by means of water evaporation.

Every morning the sap is collected from buckets hung on the trees. It is carried to a building where the fluid is heated over a wood fire until it reaches the consistency of syrup. To prevent the syrup from spoiling, the sap is concentrated. It requires 40-50 gallons of sweet sap to obtain one gallon of the final product. This is the amount that one large tree produces in one year.

Madal Bal Natural Tree Syrup™ uses only the dark grade C maple syrup, which is the least refined and richest in essential minerals.