Tribute to the ancestors - A trip to the village - Part eight - Birch juice.

For many years my favorite juice was birch sap which my mother bought for me this is something that could easily compete with carbonated drinks which I loved very much.

The juice was sold in liter and three-liter jars but for me it was never too much it had a pleasant sweet and sour taste only later I learned that sugar and citric acid are added to birch sap.

That was in childhood, and much later I saw with my own eyes how birch sap is extracted and tried it it turned out that it is absolutely tasteless at the time of its collection.

So as you already know from my previous stories my son and I decided to explore the area around the rural cemetery.

It was there that my son first saw how birch sap is extracted.

It dripped drop by drop from a cut in the tree along an aluminum chute into a plastic bottle.

People do business with it but this is not a very humane business because the tree suffers and may die.

I have not seen such cruel methods before the person did not use a drill but he made a notch with an ax and drove the gouges into the tree.

The tree looked quite healthy but no one knows how long it can be milked.

Birch trees are natural pumps and are often planted in wetlands to draw all excess moisture out of the soil.

And here groundwater is close enough.

These wounds are painful to look at.

But people believe that trees don't feel pain and do what they need to do.

I saw a lot of insects in the juice bottles it probably won't hurt the juice when it's filtered but I don't think I would like bug juice lol.

No one looks after the bottles, apparently the villagers have clearly defined areas for collecting juice and they do not worry that someone will take someone else's juice.

Stay with us tomorrow we will continue our research work.

Zoom in on a photo for a closer view.

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More to come!

Enjoy viewing the photos and reading the article!

Have a blessed day!