I'll dare say pure maple syrup can work better than honey in a tea/herbal brew. Something about the woody notes of the syrup mingling with a good minty warm brew makes it a success.
I've thought about maple syrup (less so birch syrup, but that too) as a regional source of sugar instead of having cane sugar, honey, or corn syrup. I wondered: why don't we take pride in having Michigan maple syrup in our drinks/baking/cooking?
I suspect it's really challenging to obtain since you need about 40 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. How do I know? Partake in making maple syrup at UM-Dearborn during the late winter/early spring!
Edit: In the interest of sustainability and food systems, I wound up posting a question on Quora about what source of sugar takes the least energy to create. You can check it out here: http://www.quora.com/Sustainable-Agriculture/Which-are-least-energy-intensive-for-producing-sugar-sugar-cane-beets-corn-maple-birch-or-honey
The biggest problem I can see with asking that kind of question the way I did is that people are likely going to look at it as a matter of industrial optimization--how can we get the most sugar with the least amount of energy/water. While that's not the intent, I figured it would be useful for others to know what goes into the production/procurement process of our sugars. For anyone curious, there's a relatively standardized technique called "life cycle analysis". In concepts of environmentalism, we had to perform embodied/embedded energy assessments. In essence, ask the question: what went into making, processing, and transporting whatever product you're using? How much energy did it take to make? To process? To transport? etc. and then sum it all up. Similar idea.
If you've got answers, or just want to research with me, I'd be really interested in seeing them!
I've thought about maple syrup (less so birch syrup, but that too) as a regional source of sugar instead of having cane sugar, honey, or corn syrup. I wondered: why don't we take pride in having Michigan maple syrup in our drinks/baking/cooking?
I suspect it's really challenging to obtain since you need about 40 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. How do I know? Partake in making maple syrup at UM-Dearborn during the late winter/early spring!
Edit: In the interest of sustainability and food systems, I wound up posting a question on Quora about what source of sugar takes the least energy to create. You can check it out here: http://www.quora.com/Sustainable-Agriculture/Which-are-least-energy-intensive-for-producing-sugar-sugar-cane-beets-corn-maple-birch-or-honey
The biggest problem I can see with asking that kind of question the way I did is that people are likely going to look at it as a matter of industrial optimization--how can we get the most sugar with the least amount of energy/water. While that's not the intent, I figured it would be useful for others to know what goes into the production/procurement process of our sugars. For anyone curious, there's a relatively standardized technique called "life cycle analysis". In concepts of environmentalism, we had to perform embodied/embedded energy assessments. In essence, ask the question: what went into making, processing, and transporting whatever product you're using? How much energy did it take to make? To process? To transport? etc. and then sum it all up. Similar idea.
If you've got answers, or just want to research with me, I'd be really interested in seeing them!
