Kampong Speu Palm Sugar

The sugar palm is Cambodia's national tree and stands in every rice field, and in Kampong Speu the sap is tapped and boiled into a sugar that is pale gold, softer and more fragrant than the darker palm sugars of the region; it received a protected geographical indication in 2010, the first for a Cambodian product. Tapping means climbing the palm twice a day on a notched bamboo ladder to cut the flower stalk and hang a bamboo tube, which is dangerous work done by men who go up thirty or forty times a day, and boiling the sap down over a wood fire in a shallow pan until it thickens and can be poured into moulds. Producers around the province take visitors in the season.

What you actually see

• Palm climbing - tappers going up notched bamboo ladders to the crowns.
• Sap collection - bamboo tubes hung under cut flower stalks.
• Boiling down - shallow pans over wood fires reducing the sap.
• Moulded sugar - the pale gold blocks and pots of the finished product.

When to go

November to April is the tapping season, when the work is visible; outside it the palms are not worked and there is nothing to see. Morning and late afternoon are the collection times.

Honest expectations

Visits need arranging locally as these are working farms, not attractions. Tapping is genuinely dangerous work and falls happen. The province has little tourism infrastructure. Sugar sold as Kampong Speu elsewhere is often not from here.

Nearby

Kirirom National Park lies southwest; Phnom Penh is east.