Apple tree sap - edible?

Hey,

I know that trees like Maple and Birch have edible sap ("juice"), but do fruit trees like Apple or Pear have edible sap? Anyone actually had any?

Never tasted any, but it weakens the tree. If you want fruit on the tree, don't!.
You can tap birch, linden, sugar maple but it weakens those trees a bit .

dirk maes wrote:Never tasted any, but it weakens the tree. If you want fruit on the tree, don't!.
You can tap birch, linden, sugar maple but it weakens those trees a bit .

Add to that list: Any type of maples (we tapped big leaf maples last year and got yummy syrup ) and alders (haven't tried that yet, but I hear it's not as tasty and required more boiling down)

And black walnut!

https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2016/01/tapping-walnut-trees/
https://www.ourtinyhomestead.com/walnut-syrup.html

People mostly talk about tapping maple trees though there are several other if not all trees.

Is the syrup tasty or valuable, I don't know.
Here are some threads that might be of interest to folks:

https://permies.com/t/135376/Spring-Time-Tapping

https://permies.com/t/134414/Hickory-Sap-Tapping

there are lots of trees you _can_ tap.  not all of them you'd actually want to.

I'm aware of 22 species of tree that make syrup.  The vast majority, 19, of these are maple species.

Sycamore makes surprisingly good syrup, practically indistinguishable from maple syrup.  Incidentally, it doesn't really matter what maple species you use, it's the maillard reaction in the boiling that created the maple flavor.  Walnut also makes a good syrup.  Birch...consider it more of a flavoring, more akin to vanilla.  Using some in a recipe gives flavor, but very few would take it straight.

Among those that don't make a decent syrup from the sap are the fruit trees, apple, pear, cherry, etc.  By decent, I mean unless your taste buds are dead, you don't want to try it.

Dane Geld wrote:Among those that don't make a decent syrup from the sap are the fruit trees, apple, pear, cherry, etc.  By decent, I mean unless your taste buds are dead, you don't want to try it.

That's interesting. What are the flavour/odour "notes" that make it inedible? Curious peeps want to know!

Just guessing here, but based on the smell when apple roots get cut or bruised, does the sap have some kind of bitter almond-ish/cyanogenic glycoside smell perhaps?

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Dane Geld wrote:Among those that don't make a decent syrup from the sap are the fruit trees, apple, pear, cherry, etc.  By decent, I mean unless your taste buds are dead, you don't want to try it.

That's interesting. What are the flavour/odour "notes" that make it inedible? Curious peeps want to know!

I can speak to the cherry sap! It's more like a pitch than a sap. It crystalizes into something that looks a bit like amber.

But, it's not exactly pitch, either! It's it's own thing, a "gum," and quite handy for making paints and inks!

(I took this table from this post here)

	Resin	Gum	Gum Resin
Definition	Usually oozes out of bark	Usually oozes out of stems.	Combination of gum and resin.
Water Soluble	No.	Yes.	Partially.
Alcohol Soluble	Yes.	No.	Mostly.
Examples	Pine, fir, spruce, true balsams, benzoin, copaiba, elemi.	Gum acacia, Gum tragacanth milkvetch, Indian tragacanth, Prunus ssp.	Frankincense, myrrh.