Long before Europeans stepped foot on this continent, indigenous Native Americans — primarily the Cherokee in this region — were making sweeteners from maple trees.
The history of syrup has been documented by numerous tribes in the region. It is widely recognized it is they, Native American tribes, that everyone has to thank for introducing their pioneer ancestors to the sticky, delicious maple syrup poured on pancakes today, according to the Maple Syrup Cooperative based out of Wisconsin but includes members in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states.
Vermont and New York State are the leading producers of maple syrup, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.
The West Virginia Agriculture Department, showing increasing yields of maple syrup, reported the mountain state processed 16,000 gallons in 2020. West Virginia also has all the natural resources it needs to develop into a major producer.
According to West Virginia University researchers, the state has more trees than Vermont — “as many as 400 million.” At last count, a survey conducted by the state department of agriculture reported “over 61,000 trees are tapped in W.Va. and the annual yield is now around 20,000 gallons.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture data on production stated that Vermont produces 2 million gallons of maple syrup and there are 1,500 sugarhouses processing the sap from maple trees; in W.Va. dozens more are getting involved.
Maple syrup was a gift from Native Americans to European settlers. According to countless stories on the history of maple syrup, Native Americans, mostly women, would drain sap from a tree and boil it. Settlers learned to do it, too, but it took a lot of boiling to make even one gallon of maple syrup.
Today, using faster processing methods like reverse osmosis to pull sugar out of the maple sap, modern-day maple syrup farmers are using from 40-70 gallons of sap to make a single gallon, according to both Josh Batiste of Mountain State Maple and Mike Segars of MoonStruck Maple.
Segars explained, “the maple syrup season is short, only a couple of months. The season in West Virginia is just now wrapping up. When sugar maple trees start to bud, their sap isn’t as good for syrup.”
In the last few weeks, a couple of local maple syrup farms have held open houses. Coincidently, both have links to Brooks Mountain. Both also offered information about the entire maple syrup production process, from efficient ways to tap into trees to drain sap, to reverse osmosis and boiling in wood-fired evaporators.
Josh Batiste, who spent several years of his early childhood on Brooks Mountain, has seven brothers, all with their own passions and interests. One brother has a bakery and makes cookies from maple syrup, among other things.
Batiste operates Mountain State Maple near Rainelle. He has a sweet relationship with a neighbor who allows him to tap trees on his property each winter. Batiste says he has feet of tubing in a network of lines vacuum extracting sap into collection tanks, to the tune of 3,000 gallons a day. Maple syrup, cookies, candies, granola and cotton candy are a few of the sweet products his maple syrup business makes and sells on his farm.
On Brooks Mountain in Summers County, Alisha and Mike Segars began making maple syrup about six years ago. It provides a family business at home and is fun for their kids.
The process is basically the same, though the recipes at Moonstruck Maple include infusions of flavors from cinnamon to coffee and bourbon. MoonStruck Maple is apt to be found selling at events locally from holiday vending in Hinton to Railroad Days and the Greenbrier Renaissance Festival. Other than a few minor details the two syrup processing productions are very similar.
MoonStruck Maple and Mountain State Maple entrepreneurs are young enough to build their businesses for decades into the future and are willing to share their knowledge. Open houses are held periodically at both farms, and both have Facebook pages for those interested in purchasing their maple syrup products.
