time to gather birchsap

Now at early spring in the end of march/beginning of april here in Östergötland it is time to gather birchsap. This has been done for centuries and here up in the North it was the first source for sugars, vitamins and minerals after the long winter.

You can do this many ways, but the easiest way to gather smaller quantities – and that damages the trees the least – is to just cut off a branch and hang a bottle on it. You might have to clean the branch a little where you hang the bottle so you don´t also get a lot of lichens and dirt etc into the sap.

Many people expect it to taste more sweet. Just as with maple sirup you can actually make birch sirup bu carefully boiling it down. But the quantity of sugar is far less than the amount in maple trees. But years with a very long and hard winter will result in sweeter sap. So those years it is more of an idea to test making birch sirup.
Here at Urnatur we serve the sap just as it comes from the tree to our night guests for dinner at our forest nights.