Taste it. Before it disappears.

The Heritage Range · Sri Lanka

If you tasted kithul at our stand at Global Food Week, you may have been surprised: earthy, smoky, deeply layered, and nothing like maple, agave or date syrup. Real kithul is now so hard to find that even in Sri Lanka, people argue over whether what they’re eating is genuine. This is the story of why.

A palm, a flower, a climb

Kithul comes from Caryota urens, the fishtail palm that grows in Sri Lanka’s wet-zone forests and home gardens. Our kithul comes from the districts of Ratnapura, Kegalle, Kandy and Kalutara.

The sap is drawn from the palm’s flower, high in the crown. Tappers climb the palms every day, often on simple bamboo ladders. Before a flower will give, it has to be “seasoned”: warmed, gently beaten and treated with herbal pastes whose recipes pass down through families. Mastering it can take up to 15 years^[2]. It is dangerous, patient, exhausting work.

Precious, and fragile

Fresh sap begins to ferment within hours. Tappers line their collection pots with a little slaked lime to slow it down, and the sap must be boiled down the same day^[3]. Nothing about it is uniform. The same tree, even the same flower, can give sap that shifts in colour and taste as the harvest goes on. That variation is part of its character.

In Ayurveda and Hela Vedakama, kithul has long been valued as both medicine and natural sweetener. Science is now taking a look too: a 2022 study in the Ceylon Medical Journal measured kithul treacle at a glycemic index of 35, which places it in the low-GI range^[4].

One tree. A whole life.

The kithul palm flowers from the top of the trunk downwards and, once it has flowered, it dies. Every part of that life is put to use.

Kithul Treacle

From the flower

Sap drawn from the flower, boiled down the same day before it can ferment.

Earthy, smoky, layered. Measured at GI 35.

Kithul Jaggery

From the same sap

Boiled further and stirred, then set in coconut shells.

Fudge-like, with deep caramel and smoke.

Kithul Flour

From the heart of the tree

When the palm’s life ends, its trunk pith is pounded, washed, settled and sun-dried.

Traditional for porridge and island sweets.

Why real kithul became so rare

As demand grew, large-scale producers began making cheaper syrups, and adding sugar or water became common^[5]. Prices fell, and the true tappers found it ever harder to earn a living. Fewer young people want to learn the climb^[3]. The result: genuine kithul has become one of the hardest things in Sri Lanka to buy with confidence.

A delicacy reawakening

And yet kithul is having a moment. Chefs and bartenders far from Sri Lanka have discovered just how different it is.

“When the kithul is pure and done right, it is characterized by a depth of flavor ranging from smoky to savory.”

Samantha Fore, chef · The Washington Post, 2021

“In the same way you have industrial honeys and small honeys, it’s the same with industrial kithul.”

Ryan Chetiyawardana, award-winning bartender · The Washington Post, 2021

“It takes a lot of work to be able to get the sap and boil it down.”

Amanda Kiessel, founder, Good Market · NPR, 2017

We think that recognition is how this craft survives. When kithul is valued as a gourmet ingredient, the people who climb the trees can be paid what the work is worth.

Heritage on film

In our documentary series A Forest Full of Medicine, an Ayurveda physician and a leader of the Vedda, Sri Lanka’s indigenous forest people, share what the forest has always given them.