Coconut sugar

Coconut sugar (also known as coco sugar, coconut palm sugar, coco sap sugar or coconut blossom sugar) is a palm sugar produced from the sap of the flower bud stem of the coconut palm.

Other types of palm sugar are made from the kithul palm (Caryota urens), Palmyra palm, the date palm, the sugar date palm, the sago palm or the sugar palm.

Used as a sweetener in many countries, coconut sugar has no significant nutritional or health benefits over other sweeteners.

Coconut sugar comes in crystal or granule form, block or liquid.^{[citation needed]}

Producing coconut sugar is a two-step process. It starts with harvesting or "tapping" nectar from the flower bud stem of a coconut tree. Farmers make a cut on the spadix and the sap starts to flow from the cut into bamboo containers. The sap collected is then transferred into large woks and placed over moderate heat to evaporate the moisture content of the sap. The sap is translucent and is about 80% water. At this point it is known as coconut neera or nira (Indonesia), tinamís (Philippines), coconut toddy (Sri Lanka), namwan maphrao (Thailand), or lagbi (North Africa). As the water evaporates, it starts to transform into a thick sap syrup. From this form, it may or may not be further reduced to crystal, block or soft paste form.^{[citation needed]}

The brown colour which develops as the sap is reduced is mostly due to caramelization.

Coconut sugar is widely used in Sri Lanka as an unrefined syrup or as jaggery, referred to as pol hakuru (පොල් හකුරු), though the jaggery made from the Kithul palm is preferred.^{[citation needed]}

In Indonesian cuisine coconut sugar is called gula jawa (Javanese sugar) or gula merah (red sugar), while gula aren refers to palm sugar specifically made from aren palm. Some Indonesian foodstuffs are made with coconut sugar, including kecap manis (a sweet soya sauce) and dendeng (a meat preparation).