Birch sap

Russia has a lot of forests, and the most common type of tree here is birch.

Birches are very common all over the world but nevertheless, we call it “our” tree.

We even have a joke about it, usually, we say to anyone who is going abroad “how would you subsist without birches”.

Birches lose their leaves during the winters, and they draw the water from the trunk for a winter period, because frozen water can damage the structure.

When winter ends they need to grow back their leaves and they suck in a lot of water from the earth, fortunately, there is a lot of water made from melting snow.

Some people joke that if in the spring you can “hear” the birch by leaning your ear to the trunk and hearing those pumps working.

We use that water movement to make birch sap.

The procedure is quite simple. One has to have a small drill, a few conduits, and a jar or a bottle to store it.
Make a small hole in the bark of the tree, connect all the pipes with duct tape and leave it for a few hours.
The time needed to fill the bottles varies; it depends on the tree, place, and the time of the spring.

Generally speaking, there is only a week in the beginning of May when the speed of the water is high. You can collect 7-10 liters of sap in a day from a reasonably big tree.

It is still possible to collect the sap after the season, but it will take too long.

The sap is sweet but not too much. It contains about 1-3% of sugar. It has a very special flavor, but for me personally, it reminds me of a dash of honey dissolved in water.

Many people believe that it’s very healthy.
And I can remember that when I was young I used to be able to get some  in our school cafeteria.

You can see on the picture how they collect that sap if they need a lot of it:

The modern generation of children prefers Cola for sure.

I collected a medium-sized jar of the birch sap recently. My boys only tasted it briefly but weren’t impressed.