Can Canadians get the world drinking tree sap?

While drinking tree sap does not immediately sound appealing, Canadian producers are hoping that it will be the next must-try soft drink around the world.

We have all heard of maple syrup, which is made by boiling down the sap of maple trees to produce a thick, sweet, golden-to-brown coloured syrup that is typically poured over pancakes.

What is far less well known is that you can drink the sap itself, which is called maple water. Clear in colour, it contains just 2% natural sugars, so it is only slightly sweet.

A small but growing number of producers in Canada are now selling this maple water in bottles or cartons, after first giving it a filter and pasteurisation to kill off any microbes.

“People feel like they’re drinking the wild Canadian forest,” says Yannick Leclerc of Maple3, a producer of maple water drinks, based in Quebec City.

Advocates point to the fact it is a natural drink, and makers hope that it can steal some sales from the existing similar product – coconut water. The latter is made from water that naturally forms inside coconuts.

As Canada is far and away the world’s largest producer of maple syrup – accounting for more than 80% of production – it is understandable that the nascent maple water sector is also Canadian. Furthermore, it is centred on the province of Quebec, which makes 90% of Canada’s maple syrup.

Mr Leclerc says that Maple3 is one of the pioneers of the sector. “Nobody [previously] thought about keeping the sap for its hydration purposes verses just boiling it into syrup.”

He founded the company back in 2013 with business partner Stéphane Nolet. In recent years an increasing number of other producers have entered the marketplace.

Mr Leclerc claims that Maple3 has doubled its annual profits since 2021, with sales not just rising across Canada, but in 12 other countries, including France, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Some 75% of its sales now come from overseas, and it sells both still and sparkling maple water, and fizzy versions with added natural fruit flavourings.

“It’s more than just a local product at this point,” adds Mr Leclerc.

For the maple water industry as a whole, one recent report predicts big growth. It estimated that global sales in 2024 totalled $506m (£409m), with that expected to jump to $2.6bn by 2033.

By comparison, worldwide sales of coconut water reached $7.7bn in 2023, with that expected to grow to $22.9bn by 2029. So maple water has a long way to catch up.

Meanwhile, the global value of the maple syrup market was $1.7bn last year, according to one study.

Beth Czerwony, a dietician with the non-profit medical centre Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, says the growing popularity of maple water is linked to its perceived health benefits.

“When the sap itself is filtered through the tree, it ends up absorbing a bunch of antioxidants,” she says. “So they’re gonna end up having a better performance and a faster workout recovery.”

However, one medical study from 2019 concluded that maple water was “was not superior in rehydration” to normal water.

Jeremy Kinsella owns The Soda Pop Bros in Windsor Ontario, which sells soft drinks under its own brand name, as well as imports from around the world.

His family have been in the industry for nearly a century, and in his lifetime he has seen a fair share of trends come and go.

He says that if maple water is to go mainstream it needs the financial backing and promotion of one of the huge global soft drinks firms.

“It will take a larger soda manufacturer for it to really catch on,” he says.

Mr Kinsella also says that the price of maple water is currently too high. “When it comes down to it, someone’s looking at a can of Coke for a buck and they’re looking at a can of maple water for three bucks, they’re going to try it a couple of times and go back to Coke,” he says.

Marketing maple water more would certainly help it increase sales, says John Tomory, who helps run Pefferlaw Creek Farms in Uxbridge, Ontario. He and his brothers have been making maple syrup commercially for almost 10 years, and for the past four they have also been selling the sap to a Canada brand called Sap Sucker. This makes sparkling sap water with different added flavours, from lime to grapefruit, and lemon to orange.

Mr Tomory says he agrees with this approach to make the sap more interesting. “I know a lot of people have tried just selling the sap as it is, just basic sap from the tree and it’s still, but they haven’t really caught on,” he says.

“So I think carbonating it and adding fruit flavour makes it more interesting. That’s the real innovation.”

Back at Maple3 in Quebec, Mr Leclerc also thinks that the sparkling version of the drink could be the more popular: “It has perks that a normal sparkling water doesn’t have,” he says, such as a more interesting flavour, without having all the bad stuff that [regular] soda has.”