The white paper-birch tree, neglected since its bark was used to make canoes, is oozing out a new, darkly flavoured identity. Entrepreneur Heloise Dixon-Warren says birch syrup made from the tree’s sap is a small idea that could get a lot bigger. “The syrup has a
very bold, unique kind of caramel taste,” the Quesnel tree farmer says. “Our girls like to drizzle the syrup on ice cream. I think it’s lovely.”
Heloise Dixon-Warren, one of three commercial birch-syrup producers in B.C., taps a tree on her Moose Meadows Farm, west of Quesnel. Birch syrup looks dark brown, like maple, and has the same consistency, slightly thicker than water. However, birch syrup is made from sap that is about half as rich in sugar as maple’s. Birch syrup’s sugar content is mainly fructose and glucose; maple’s, by comparison, is mostly sucrose.
“People say fructose sugar is healthier than sucrose,” Dixon-Warren says.
Unlike Canada’s world-famous maple syrup, the birch variety will need time to become a fixture on pancakes. There are only 11 producers in Canada, three of whom are in B.C.
Photo via CanadianMoose
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