Maple Syrup

Maple syrup is a sweet syrup made from the sap of maple trees, which in cold climates store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; the starch converts to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring, when the trees are tapped by drilling holes into their trunks to collect the sap, which is then heated to evaporate much of its water, leaving the concentrated syrup. Maple syrup was first made by Indigenous peoples of Northeastern North America, a practice later adopted by European settlers who gradually refined production methods, with further technological improvements in the 1970s; almost all of the world's maple syrup is produced in Canada and the United States, with Quebec alone accounting for 72 percent of global output. It is graded based on its color and taste, with sucrose its most prevalent sugar.