Maple Tea in Canada

I’ve been spending the past few days in Canada with Maddie and her family. It’s nice, quiet, and relaxing. They make their own maple syrup. It’s good.

We, Maddie, her three brothers, and myself, went out to the backwoods to gather sap from the maple trees. It’s a bit odd to walk around and see a dozen small tin buckets latched to trees with little roofs on top of their rims, but you instantly know what they are and what they’re for.

I didn’t know that syrup, and by syrup I mean sap, looks like water before being refined to that sugary substance we put on our pancakes. I also didn’t know that maple syrup, at least homemade maple syrup, is a tasty addition to tea. I’ve grown fond of this mix lately -- it’s sweeter than sugar and adds a distinct flavor without overpowering the tea. It's nice.

Homemade maple syrup is typically made in a shed. The Pascoe’s isn’t. It’s made in their garage with two large pots holding 60 liters, nearly 32 gallons combined. Normally, according to Mr. Pascoe, there’d be a long pan stove heated by wood in a long shed. He said the pan stove allows water in the sap to evaporate quicker. 

The Pascoe’s wait until enough water evaporates from their pots before they empty one into the other. They skim the foam off the top of the sap, wait, skim again, wait, skim again, pour one pot into the other and fill the empty pot with more sap. Out of 120 liters of maple sap they may get three and a half liters; 19 hours of work for just under a gallon. But the syrup is good and worth the work. Especially when it's in tea.