Collecting fresh birch sap in our back yard.
For a few days now, we've been drinking lots of freshly collected birch sap instead of table water. It's very refreshing, and tastes like a mildly sweetened water. According to folk medicine, birch sap helps to combat 101 illnesses. It's detoxifying, contains C and PP vitamins, carotene, various sugars and malic acid.
But most importantly, it tastes good.
10 comments:
Oh- I'm curious now! What will you do with it?
I second Siri's question. What are you gonna do with it?
We have been thinking about doing this. Birch syrup is pretty popular here in Alaska.
Siri and Susan - I should have explained it :) You drink it au naturel - tastes like a very lightly sweetened good water :)
Nicole - how interesting. Do you boil it down to reduce it as a syrup? We collect maple sap here as well, but it's not as sweet as the Sugar Maple sap you get in the Northern America, so it's not used for making maple syrup.
Interesting. This is something new to me. Drinking sap of a birch tree.Here in Asia, it's the coconut juice.
Wow, I have actually never heard of drinking it straight from the tree. I will definitely have to try that. Do you tap them right away in the spring?
Birch Syrup is not nearly as sweet or thick as Maple Syrup. I still love Maple Syrup the best, but Birch Syrup is a fun, much less expensive, and local alternative.
I must admit that I don't have much syruping experience. As far as I know you just boil it down. My partner, David grew up in Maine and is the Maple Syrup officiando!
"Do you tap them right away in the spring?"
The season is about 2 spring weeks only - until the ground is fully thawed.
"You drink it au naturel - tastes like a very lightly sweetened good water :)"
Some also ferment the sap and bottle it, and then preserve in cellar. But the fresh sap is much tastier.
Tree in my garden looks like a birch. Will have to find out!
Iml - well, we've got no coconuts here, so birch and maple sap are the natural spring-time options :)
Nicole - yes, early spring, when the average daily temperature is 4 C and before the birch leaves appear. The season is pretty short, just a fortnight or so.
Scott - do so. But note that as you live in a much warmer place than I do, the season is probably over for 2009 already. But you can always try next year. I wonder if your wife's family in Poland collects the birch and maple sap in the spring (or relatives on the countryside?).
We're bottling birch tree sap ... and bringing it to the US. It's a pretty amazing product, hope you'll enjoy it - www.byarozavik.com.
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