Berlin, Vermont - December 8, 2011
The sparkle of fresh fallen snow looks like sugar. A sweet scene accented by maple trees -- a symbol of another sweet season.
In Berlin Thursday, maple syrup producers from the region are getting a taste of what's to come.
"There's something iconic about it, and once its gets in your blood it doesn't come out,"
Linda Mullestein, a student from Brookfield attending the International Maple Grading School -- a two day course organized by the Universities of Maine and Vermont.
"The more you sugar, the more you know you don't know," Mullestein said. Sugar makers get to learn the science of maple -- everything from what impacts taste, to how to grade it. "I'm just fascinated and wanted to learn why every batch is different, even though it's the same trees, equipment -- but every batch is different," Mullestein said. Mullestein makes Brookfield Sugarmakers syrup the old fashioned way -- with horses and buckets and 1-thousand taps.
Across the table, Dean Parent sugars in Enosburg at a much larger operation with 65-thousand taps. No matter the size, lessons learned here will help. "We want to put out a good product and we want to recognize issues that we might have that we might now know we have," Parent said.
To figure out what's good, they have to learn what's bad. A blind tasting puts the skills of these 20 sugar makers to the test. They have to figure out what's off with 17 different batches of syrup. Some batches had gas in it, others soap -- a problem when buckets or lines aren't rinsed well enough.
"What we want to do is make sure the syrup that's offered here is good quality and people are grading it correctly," said Henry Marckres, a maple specialist who is the Consumer Protection Section Chief for the State of Vermont.
And for Dean Parent, that's what it's all about. "If you're a true Vermonter, maple's in your blood," he said.
Tasting the flavor of Vermont in the off season and making sure each batch of syrup makes the grade.
