There are four grades of maple syrup: Grade A Golden, Grade A Amber, Grade A Dark and Grade A Very Dark. In general, the darker the color, the richer the taste. It basically comes down to, the longer it takes to boil, the darker it gets in color and more robust in flavor. (JON BODELL / Insider staff)
A seasoned maple syrup pro can tell a lot about the temperatures of a given season by looking at the color of the syrup. Darker syrup correlates to warmer temperatures, and lighter creations to colder temps. In this shot taken at Mapletree Farm in Concord, the first two bottles on the left are from this year – one for each boil owner Dean Wilber has done so far. After those two, the rest are bottles from last year’s season, in order. By looking at this photo, we can tell that last year started off a little warm (the first bottle is on the darker side), then it cooled off for a little while, which is why you see the very light colors in the middle. Then, at the end of the season when it was the warmest, the syrup was the darkest.
