- Hi, I'm Parris and at the supermarket recently
to pick up some Stevia-sweetened sodas to try
out for a video, I saw a drink I had never seen
before and didn't know existed.
It's maple water.
Now we have maple syrup in the house.
What's the connection between these two?
Is this particularly good for you?
And how does it taste?
(harmonized singing)
Our local store has Drink Maple.
I think there are three companies that bottle
maple water.
This is a 12-ounce bottle, went for about $2,
a little on the pricey side.
It was actually right next to the coconut water,
which I think this is intended to be a competitor to.
It's only 30 calories for this bottle with seven
grams of sugar and the one nutritional item it
seems to have quite a bit of is manganese.
So where does maple water come from?
Well, it actually does come from maple trees,
same as maple syrup.
In fact, this is collected in the springtime when
the sap comes up out of the roots and goes back
up into the tree to feed the leaves.
That liquid that gets tapped to make maple
syrup is the same liquid that is maple water.
But to get maple syrup, they take a lot of this
and they boil it, they boil a lot of the water out
and they basically thicken it up so what you
have left is syrup.
And as for maple water's nutritional benefits,
well it's very nutritional for maple leaves cause
that's what it's intended for.
It's mostly water with a little bit of sugar.
Now it picks up what's been in the soil throughout
the winter because that's where the sap sits,
down in the roots, so supposedly it picks up
some trace minerals, some prebiotics,
some, anyway different things that may be
good for you.
A test they have done over the years with
maple syrup shows that there are some healthful
components of this, but would you find them in this?
Well, probably because this is the same stuff.
This is basically concentrated maple water so the
question is, those in the test they found those
particular things in the maple syrup, would there
be enough of them in just plain maple water
to really make a difference for you?
To give you an idea of the concentration that
happens, in this 12-ounce bottle there are seven
grams of sugar; in this 12-1/2 ounce bottle of
maple syrup, pure maple syrup, there are 200
grams of sugar, seven, 200.
And so some people argue this is just the next
trendy water, $2 bottle of water that's not that
much different from what a penny would buy you
out of your own tap, but none of that matters if it
doesn't taste good and if you don't like drinking it.
So I can't answer the other questions definitively
about if it is going to be extremely healthful, but
I can tell you what I think of the taste.
Now nothing's been done to this after it's been
taken from the tree, as I understand it, except
it has been pasteurized so you don't get bad
bacteria growing in there.
And while I was researching this online, I did find
there's a company that will sell you
raw maple water that hasn't been pasteurized.
That's your own risk.
Okay.
Let me pour it in a glass so you can see what
it looks like, it's got a little color to it.
Well, is that color or is that just opaqueness,
something floating around?
It's not air bubbles.
Let me zoom in.
I don't know if I would say it has a tint or a color
but it's not completely clear, I can say that.
There's something in there.
Time for the taste test.
Okay, I can taste sweetness,
different than if it was just sugar water.
But I guess there is that maple essence
to it which is so strong in syrup because it's
been concentrated.
Here it's a very light bouquet of that.
By the way, I am drinking it cold, I had it
refrigerated and they do recommend that.
I would say it tastes surprisingly sweet for
how little sugar there actually is in it.
And I don't know about the benefit of the
nutritional claims that they have but it only has
seven grams of sugar but it tastes like it
has a lot more so I think this could substitute
for something else that you're drinking that
is loaded with sugar.
If maple water hasn't made it to your
local supermarket, I have a link down below
this video to where you find it online.
You can keep checking back for our future
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See you on the next review.
(harmonized singing)