Rating Tree Syrups You Didn't Know You Could Eat, With a UNH Expert
Maple trees don’t have a monopoly on the syrup game. David Moore, a doctoral candidate in UNH’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, studies tree physiology and syrup production in a variety of species – maple, yes, but also birches, walnuts, beeches, sycamores, basswoods, and hophornbeams.
So, what do some of these alternative syrups taste like? We had Moore share samples with a couple of taste testers, who gave their ratings in the video above.
Moore’s work centers on developing best management practices for harvesting sap and producing syrup from different trees. He’s also looking at how trees heal from tap hole wounds and the chemical compositions of saps and syrups. He was formerly the owner and operator of The Crooked Chimney, a sugaring operation in Lee, New Hampshire.
“I used to have a birch syrup business, and I was always thinking about what other types of trees I could tap for syrup production,” Moore says. “I was pretty excited about all the new flavors that were possible from different trees.”
Moore says he was also excited to learn that UNH had a professor who studied sap flow in Heidi Asbjornsen. He’s currently earning his doctorate in UNH’s natural resources & Earth systems science program.
The focus of Moore’s research is on developing best-management practices for syrup production from all different species, so producers have guidelines to follow and can be confident what they are doing is both efficient and sustainable, Moore says.
“I'm also really interested in figuring out why sap flows and is pressurized during winter dormancy when trees are leafless and aren't really photosynthesizing,” Moore adds. “When trees undergo water stress, gas bubbles form in their xylem vessels and can restrict sap flow. Some types of trees, like maples, have the ability to generate pressure internally during winter dormancy, which helps to redissolve these gas bubbles and ensure that the xylem vessels are restored and able to transport sap again. We call this process ‘embolism repair.’”
So how did the maple-alternative syrups stack up in our taste test? Check out the video to find out.