In the United, Canada, Europe and other countries around the world, maple syrup that is derived from the sap of maple trees is widely used as a natural sweetener.  The sugar from the juice of the sugar bush is carefully extracted retaining all of the organic sugarness coupled with essential vitamins and nutrients. Many people especially in the United States have recognized maple syrup as a key source of energy and vitimans. Long before the Brittish settlers set their foot on Indian soil, maple syrup has already been present for a long period of time.  The Pre-Columbian Native Americans who live in the Northern part of North America were one of the first if not the first known indivduals to have developed and produced maple syrup.   Research also shows that long before the Europeans arrive, the indians were already processing, developing and consuming maple syrup and other things like pure maple butter.

Suitable maple tree trunks containing juice were searched for by the natives during the end of the winter or in early sring.  These saps will be collected and then boiled by batch thereby evaporating some of the water in it.  The sugar left will then be concentrated upon together with the remaining h2o.   The taste of the sugar will then be changed due to it being caramelized making it into maple syrup. The Brittish settlers quickly integrated into their culture this maple making process.   The year 1700 up to 1800 marked the significant changes in the maple syrup industry. Europeans, fur traders and indians were intensely involved in this sugar making industry as the maple syrup back then was one of the major providers of concentrated sugar.   The Brittishs brought about the development of the process of making pure maple syrup due to their more advance and sophisticated technologies involving metallurgy and toolmaking.

Today, maple syrup creation is generally focused on the northeastern region of N.A..   The Vermont stand, a world renowned maple producing farm full of maple trees is located in the U.S.  Vermont together with the other numerous maple stands in the U.S. are closely related to the other maple farms located in Canada and Europe.  These farms use “sugar houses” or “sugar shacks” where sugar bush juice is boiled in the hundreds. There are two major maple species that can be extracted from sugar bushs.   The first one is the “acer saccharum” or the sugar maple.  This is the kind of maple syrup that has average to moderate sugar content.   Second is the black maple or “acer nigrum”. This is the kind of maple syrup classified as dark syrup because of its color due to the high sugar content from the juice it was extracted from and give a great dark pure maple candy.

The maple stands in Canada contribute to more than 80 percent of the total maple syrup created not only in the United States but the rest of the globe.   The maple syrup produced is roughly 25 up to 30 million gallons per year based on a research conducted last 2005.   The farms found in Quebec, Canada contribute most of these millions of liters of maple syrup.  Again according to the research last 2005 Quebec has been the world’s largest creater of maple syrup, producing up to 75 percent of the total maple syrup for the whole world. The maple stands in Eastern are being controlled and supervised using the latest supply, demand and managements systems available.  This system accepts data input requirements pertaining to quotas about the volume to be produced and the total need for the maple syrup from the different parts of the world.   Voluminous orders of maple syrup by large scale supermarkets and other wholesalers of maple syrup are sent to this system everyday, amounting to hundreds or even thousands of orders per day of mapel products like pure maple sugar.

An ample amount of maple syrup reserves are being maintained in the maple farms located in Eastern.  The reason for this is simple, pertaining to a strategic preparation for situations of a double or triple increase in the need for maple syrup all over the world.  Again according to the 2005 research, even if the demand rises to double or even triple the usually amount, the stands in Eastern have enough reserves amounting to 20 million gallons that can meet such rise a possible rise in demand. The Vermont farm located in the U.S. is the second largest creater of maple syrup as of today.  A total of 450 thousand gallons of maple syrup are manufactured and created in this stand every year.  The remainder with regard to the total demand of maple syrup worldwide is being supplied by other stands beside Vermont and Quebec and are located in Maine, New York, Connecticut and other U.S. stand lands.

The creation of maple syrup is largely focused on the months of February up to April.   This largely depends upon the local weather conditions surrounding the maple stand.   Maple sap can be harvested due to the heat and cold factors present during the day and night respectively.  The constant changes of the temperature will eventually make the juice come out of the artificial tap holes or other exit parts of the maple tree. This sap will be the main ingredient used in order to make maple syrup.   The sap will eventually be heated for long periods of time in order to harvest the liquid substance similar to sugar. Processing maple syrup needs ample amount of time and energy.   A typical example is that it takes a period of 24 hours in order to heat down 40 liters of gathered maple sap.  These 40 gallons will eventually be heated down into 1 liter of maple syrup.   Good thing there are now innovations and technological developments with regard to the machineries used in maple syrup creation, unlike before.   Not only is the speed of producing maple syrup increased but also the quality and sugarness of the maple syrup produced is of the best due to this maple syrup processing machines.

There are currently different grades of maple syrup consisting of several color classes based on Canadian and U.S. standards.   In Canada, there are mainly three grades namely Canada number 1 consisting of extra light and light maple syrup, Canada number 2 consisting of medium and amber and then Canada number 3 consisting of dark maple syrup.   In the United States there are mainly four grades namely Vermont Fancy, Grade A medium amber, dark amber and Grade B maple syrup.