• Home
  • Our Shop
  • About Us
    • About MKB
    • Our Shop
    • MKB Board
    • Editorial Board and MKB Administrators
    • Our Contributors
    • For Bloggers: Join MKB
    • Books and Products from Our Members
    • Cultural Resources
    • Contact Us
  • Product Promotion Services
  • Blog Hops & Series
    • Holidays Around the World
      • Martin Luther King Day
      • Chinese New Year
      • Purim
      • Passover
      • Easter Around the World
      • Ramadan
      • Hajj (Eid al Adha)
      • Rosh Hashanah
      • Day of the Dead
      • Diwali
      • Hanukkah
      • Christmas in Different Lands
    • Heritage Months
      • Black History Month
      • Women’s History Month
      • Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month
      • Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month
      • Hispanic Heritage Month
      • Native American Heritage Month
    • Blogging Carnivals
    • Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop
    • Global Learning for Kids
    • Read Around the World Summer Reading
  • Resources for Raising Global Citizens
  • Privacy Policy
  • Hanukkah
  • Celebrate Christmas Around the World!

Multicultural Kid Blogs

For families and educators raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.

Birch Sap: the Springtime Superdrink

April 13, 2018 by Ilze Ievina

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

In Latvia, where I come from, foraging is a national sport. In summer we flock to meadows and forests to pick blueberries and wild strawberries. Then in autumn, our woods provide us with a bounty of delicious mushrooms. But the real foraging season begins much earlier in the year. Soon after the snow melts and the ground thaws, Latvians begin tapping for birch sap.

Birch sap | Multicultural Kid Blogs
Photo: Ole Husby | Flickr Creative Commons

What is Birch Sap?

Birch sap, also known as birch water, is tapped from birch trees. The sap can only be collected for 2-3 weeks in the spring, just after the ground has thawed and before the tree starts budding green leaves.

In a nutshell, birch sap is very similar to maple sap – the main ingredient of maple syrup – just less sweet and more refreshing. Ask a Latvian, and they will most likely reply: it tastes like spring!

The Uses of Birch Sap

Birch sap from Estonia
Birch sap from Estonia. Photo: ÖselBirch | Wikimedia Commons

Birch sap is a traditional drink across the Northern Hemisphere. While especially loved by the people of the Scandinavian and the Baltic countries, it’s also known in Northern China and Japan, Canada and Northern US, Russia, and other countries.

It’s a natural source of various vitamins and minerals and is traditionally used for revitalization, cleansing, as well as combating poor health. As birch sap remains fresh only for a few days, bottled birch water has usually been either fermented or pasteurized.

More creative uses of birch sap include lemonade, beer, wine, and sparkling wine (I can vouch that the latter tastes great!). It can also be used in cooking, for example, for making syrup, marmalade, or ice cream, and makes a great ingredient for creative cocktails.

Apparently, birch water is the up-and-coming health drink trend and will soon give coconut water a run for its money. But, for Latvians, nothing can compete with fresh birch sap straight from the tree. During the tapping season, the average Latvian consumes around 1,5 liters of birch sap per day.

Harvesting Birch Sap

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the perfect time of the year for trying to harvest your own birch sap! Once you have found a suitable tree, the process is very simple. You just need to drill a shallow hole in the birch tree’s trunk and insert a tap or a tube. Then strap a container for collecting the sap to the tree and wait for the sap to collect.

Tap for harvesting birch sap | Multicultural Kid Blogs
A historic birch tree tap. Photo: Daderot | Wikimedia Commons

As with (almost) everything these days, you can also learn how to tap a birch tree for sap on YouTube.

Have you ever tried fresh birch sap or bottled birch water?

 

Related Posts:

Spring Foraging With Kids
Explore Wild Nature in Latvia
10 Fun Facts About Latvia for Kids

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profile

Ilze Ievina

Ilze is a social researcher and an intercultural trainer, a mom and a blogger. Originally from the small Baltic country Latvia, her path of education brought her to Northern Germany where she met her future husband and decided to stay for a little longer. Ilze blogs about her adventures in expat life, as well as trilingual and multicultural parenting at Let the Journey Begin.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profile

Latest posts by Ilze Ievina (see all)

  • 10 Fun Facts About Malaysia for Kids - November 1, 2019
  • 10 Fun Facts about Hamburg, Germany for Kids - February 11, 2019
  • Birch Sap: the Springtime Superdrink - April 13, 2018

Filed Under: Health, Latvia, Learning About Culture Tagged With: birch sap, birch water, foraging, Latvia, spring

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Comments

  1. Lisa Lewis, MD says

    April 16, 2018 at 12:21 pm

    Fascinating. I wish we lived close to birch trees to try this. I didn’t realize tapping the trees was so popular in Latvia. Thank you for sharing.

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on Google+Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Instagram

Anti-Bullying Resource FREE Download

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Grab Our Button!

grab button for Multicultural Kid Blogs
<div class="multicultural-kid-blogs-button" style="width: 200px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/button-take-3.jpg" alt="Multicultural Kid Blogs" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div>
Multicultural Children's Book Day Co-Host

Archives

Copyright © 2019 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Necessary Always Enabled