On March 25, the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design & Sustainability (CEEDS) hosted its annual maple sap boil on Chapin House Drive. Community members passing by were encouraged to take part in the New England tradition.
The event, open to the Smith community from 10 a.m. to noon, gave visitors a chance to taste sap from MacLeish Field Station’s sugar maples, before sampling the syrup it becomes. A maple syrup evaporator and traditional tapping setup, including tubing, a bucket, and a spout, offered a firsthand look at the process from tree to table.
The sap itself was collected about a month ago from MacLeish by students. According to Paul Wetzel, Curriculum & Research Administrator at CEEDS, timing and location are important when selecting where to tap a tree for sap. Where sun exposure is greatest and more water runs up through the trunk, tapping on the southwest side of the tree is usually best.
This timing is connected to New England’s fluctuating weather in late winter. Maple sugaring season in Massachusetts typically runs from mid-February through early April, largely dependent on temperature. When temperatures rise above freezing during the day and drop below freezing at night, pressure builds and releases inside the tree, pushing sap out through the tap holes. When nights begin to stay consistently above freezing, the season ends.
According to Becca Malloy, Assistant Director of Sustainability at CEEDS, who spoke with community members about the process, the scale of transformation from sap to syrup is remarkable.
“It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup,” she said. This ratio explains the importance of the maple syrup evaporator, which works by boiling off water content and concentrating the sap’s natural sugars, which then caramelize.
“It can last for several years,” said Wetzel on the final batch, if stored properly.
An FAQ sheet at the event covered a range of topics, such as the low risks of tapping healthy trees and the many other tree varieties that can make a syrup with its own distinct flavor.
Commercially, maple syrup production is concentrated in northeastern North America, with Vermont as the top producer in the United States. The tradition, however, might face some pressure in the coming decades. The FAQ noted that climate change has already begun to shift both the regions where maple syrup is produced and the timing of the season.
For those who stopped by– however briefly– it was a sweet reminder of the season’s changing.
Smith community members can stay up to date with future CEEDs events here.
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