Tradition

Palm sugar production


Palm sugar production is the Khmer craft of tapping the flowers of the palmyra palm and boiling the sap into sugar.[1][2] Families in the Cambodian countryside have made it for generations in the dry season, and the sugar, skor thnot, runs through Khmer cooking, from curries and sauces to rice-cake desserts.[3][4][5]

Names

Palm sugar is known in Khmer as skor thnot.[1] Thnot is the Khmer name for the palmyra palm, Borassus flabellifer.[3] A lightly boiled syrup is called pot sugar, skâ pieng (ស្ករពាង), and solid sugar cakes are skâ p'aèn (ស្ករផែន), also written skor phen.[5] Sugar from the protected Kampong Speu area is sold as Skor Thnot Kampong Speu.[6][2]

Practice

Season

Sap is collected in the dry season. In Cambodia the season runs from November to the end of May, with the busiest weeks beginning in April, the hottest month.[6][7] Kampong Speu producers count the season from December through May.[8][4][2] Once the rains come, the sap loses its purity, and farmers turn to their fields.[8]

Tapping the palm

Producers climb the palms in the morning and evening.[1] They cut into the flower stalk and hang a bamboo container beneath it to gather sap overnight.[2] The traditional bamboo containers are called bampong, and the wooden tools are the antok and khnos.[9] A small piece of popel or koki wood placed in each container slows fermentation.[6][1] Sap is taken from female flowers and sometimes from male ones, and it is gathered twice a day.[5] Traditionally, men climb the palms and collect the sap, while women cook, crystallize and package the sugar.[6][1] Climbing is dangerous work.[3]

Cooking

The sap is filtered and boiled in large pans over a fire.[6][1] At Preah Dak in Siem Reap Province, about 30 liters (8 gallons) of juice is cooked in a large clay-pot cooker over firewood and stirred at high heat for at least three hours, twice a day. It is then stirred for about ten minutes more until it turns semi-solid and light brown.[1] The thickened sugar is kneaded with wooden sticks until solid.[2] It is poured into small round palm-leaf molds that give disc-shaped cakes, and the finished sugar is packed in palm leaves.[1] The cooked sugar has a rich aroma and a light brown color.[1] Palm sugar is made without chemical additives.[6][1]

In Kampong Speu, the sap must be processed within 15 hours of collection, and the sugar must stay purely natural, with nothing mixed in.[8] The Kampong Speu Palm Sugar Promotion Association introduced sanitary stoves fitted with a pipe that keeps smoke from escaping around the pan, while keeping the traditional boiling process. Before that, sap was collected at no fixed time and boiled on open stoves for no set length of time.[8] In 2009 GERES developed a cooking stove for palm sugar producers that used 30 percent less firewood.[2]

Forms and storage

Palm sugar is made as granules, paste, blocks and syrup, which differ in texture, color, aroma, acidity and sweetness.[6][1] It is formed into bricks or small cakes, or granulated and sold as powder.[2] In Cambodia the paste is mostly eaten at home, while the powder is exported.[3][2] Unrefined sugar keeps for up to three months after cooking, and finished products keep one to three years, depending on the form.[9] Paste keeps no more than six months, and packaged powder up to three years.[10]

History

Palm sugar has been made in Cambodia since ancient times and has long been part of rural life.[3][6] A royal decree of 1901 encouraged farmers to plant palmyra palms in rice-growing areas, and the palm was declared a national emblem of Cambodia in 2005.[6][1] Over the decade before 2019, palm sugar became more and more a commercial product, with new technology and marketing.[3]

Cambodia's Ministry of Commerce granted Kampong Speu Palm Sugar geographical indication (GI) status in 2010, under the World Trade Organization agreement on intellectual property rights.[6][3] The European Union registered it as a protected geographical indication in April 2019.[6][3][4] An application has also been filed for EU Protected Designation of Origin status.[5]

Kampong Speu palm sugar

Kampong Speu Province holds about a third of Cambodia's roughly three million palmyra palms and is known for the country's most famous palm sugar.[4][5] The GI area lies west of Phnom Penh. It covers Oudong and Samrong Tong districts in Kampong Speu Province and Ang Snuol District in Kandal Province.[6] Oudong district was later divided into Oudong Me Chey town and Samaki Monichey district, so the same area is also counted as four divisions.[7][8] The palms must grow where about 80 centimeters (31 inches) of sand lies over 80 centimeters of red gravel.[8][6] Sugar sold in the European Union as Skor Thnot Kampong Speu must carry the EU PGI logo and come from the three districts.[6]

The Kampong Speu Palm Sugar Promotion Association was founded by Sam Saroeun in 2008; Mekong Eye dates the nonprofit association to 2009.[8][4] It inspects sugar, issues GI certificates, buys members' sugar and stops recognizing producers who repeatedly break its rules.[8] Members need at least 15 palms of their own or rented.[4] Membership has been counted as 150 families in 2021, 280 farmers and about ten member companies in 2020, and 156 farmers in 2023.[4][2][8] In 2023 the members owned about 300,000 palms but tapped only about 3,000 for lack of workers, making 200 to 250 tonnes of sugar a season.[8] The association received a Ministry of Commerce award on World Intellectual Property Day in April 2023.[8]

Harvests depend on the weather. In 2021 the association supplied about 150 tonnes, less than the demand, because of weather and pandemic labor shortages.[4] Output reached 157 tonnes in 2024. In 2025, unseasonal rain from April stalled harvesting and cut the season to about 70 to 80 tonnes, a little more than half of normal, against orders of 150 tonnes.[6]

Uses

Palm sugar is widely used in Khmer cooking, especially in the countryside, and its sweetness is distinct from cane sugar.[4] It balances salty fish sauce and prahok in sauces and braised dishes such as samlor korko and amok trei, and it goes into soups, curries, marinades and stir-fries.[5][6] It gives grilled meats and skewers a glossy finish.[5] It is also used in drinks and in offerings.[6][1]

It sweetens many Cambodian desserts, among them num chak chan and num ansom, including sticky rice cakes filled with palm sugar paste, coconut and banana.[9][5] For num phlae ay (នំផ្លែអាយ), glutinous rice balls, a piece of palm sugar is wrapped in rice dough, and the balls are boiled until they float, cooled and sprinkled with grated coconut.[4] Palm sugar syrup is poured over shaved ice with fruit and jellies.[5] Chefs in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap use it in cocktails, ice cream and baked goods.[5]

Palm sap can also be fermented into palm wine, syrup and candy. Confirel makes a sparkling palm wine, Tnot, and the traditional drink holds two to three percent alcohol.[10]

Meaning and significance

The palmyra palm is a national symbol of Khmer culture and an income source for rural Cambodians.[2][3] Its trunk is used for building, its fruit for food and its sap for sugar, and other parts serve as fuel, tools, fences and household materials.[3][2] The palm supports livelihoods through several products, not sugar alone.[4] Palm sugar production is a traditional Cambodian occupation tied to Khmer identity.[4]

Variations

Siem Reap

In Preah Dak commune, on the road to Banteay Srei and Phnom Kulen National Park, makers keep to traditional methods. Tako village is known for both Khmer noodles and palm sugar.[1] Makers sell to local and foreign visitors, who watch the juice boil and taste the sugar and fresh juice.[1] A palm sugar village of about 100 shops between Siem Reap city and Banteay Srei grew out of a Ministry of Tourism effort to give farmers a steady income through community-based tourism, and international nonprofits, including Germany's GIZ, trained local farmers in hygienic production.[11] Some vendors tap their own palms, while others buy the sap.[11]

Khmer communities in An Giang, Vietnam

In the Bay Nui region of An Giang Province, in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, palm sugar making is a traditional craft of the Khmer community.[12] Almost every Khmer family there grows palms along field borders.[12] A local legend tells that a farmer found sweet sap dripping from a broken palm bud and caught it in a bamboo tube.[12] A palm takes about 15 years or more to give sap, or more than 20 years.[12][13] The season runs from the tenth lunar month to the fourth lunar month of the next year.[12] In Chau Lang village, Tri Ton district, it begins in November and lasts until June or July, and Shorea cochinchinensis wood is added to lower the acidity of the juice and improve its flavor and color.[14]

Harvesters scrape the flower stalk in the afternoon to start the flow, and in peak season one harvester working about 50 rented palms can collect more than 300 liters (79 gallons) a day.[13] Sugar makers filter the fresh sap through cloth, then stir it for three to four hours with a bamboo paddle, and six to seven liters of sap make one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of sugar.[13] Furnaces built inside houses burn rice husks, firewood or coal.[12] Makers taste the sap to judge how much lime water to add against acidity, and keep the heat below 80°C (176°F) so the sugar does not darken.[12] The thick sugar is poured into cylindrical molds and crystallizes as it cools.[12] The Khmer palm sugar craft of Tinh Bien and Tri Ton was recognized as national intangible cultural heritage of Vietnam, announced on December 27, 2024.[12]

Community

In Cambodia

Palm sugar is made mostly by small-scale producers, often subsistence farmers, and about 20,000 Cambodian families make it.[2] Production is usually a family business, and families in places such as Preah Dak carry on the work and show it to visitors.[4][1] Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Kampong Chhnang and Svay Rieng are the four leading provinces.[3][2] Cooperatives and producer associations help set prices and quantities, oversee quality and link producers with trading companies.[2][4]

A family can earn about $4,000 to $5,000 in a season, and one account puts seasonal earnings as high as nearly $6,000.[6][4][8] Sam Saroeun has said that younger people now choose garment or construction work, that about 20 percent of producers are in their thirties and 70 to 80 percent in their forties and fifties, and that the trade could disappear in 10 to 20 years if young people stay away.[4] Land development has cleared palms from areas once covered with them, and mature palms take decades to grow back.[4] The association encourages farmers to plant palms at home.[4] Irregular rainfall has cut recent output.[6]

Trade and exports

Cambodian palm sugar exports rose from almost nothing in 2014 to $332,000, or 107 tonnes, in 2020, and by 2019 the sugar reached 25 countries.[2][3] In 2015 about 75 percent of Cambodian palm sugar was exported and 25 percent sold at home.[3] Kampong Speu powder goes to France, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, India, South Korea and other ASEAN countries.[8] In 2020 Spain was the largest reported buyer, followed by South Korea, France and Italy.[2] Confirel buys more than 100 tonnes of Kampong Speu palm sugar a year, and about 60 percent goes to the European Union, the United States and Japan.[6][7] Confirel works with 25 families in five villages of Oudong district, codes each tree and checks daily that the juice comes from naturally growing palms.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 Phnom Penh Post, Khmer traditional sugar palm makers continue the tradition
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 EuroCham Cambodia, Sourcing from Cambodia: Palm Sugar (PDF)
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 University of New England, Improving the Cambodian Palm Sugar Industry (PDF)
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 Mekong Eye, Kampong Speu: Palm sugar and a Cambodian tradition (May 25, 2021)
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 Wonders of Cambodia, Cambodian Palm Sugar: Tradition, Flavor, and Culinary Uses (September 7, 2025)
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 Phnom Penh Post, Bitter times for Kampong Speu palm sugar (April 3, 2025)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Phnom Penh Post, Kampong Speu palm sugar prices go up, but int'l orders go down (April 4, 2023)
  8. ↑ 8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 8.10 8.11 8.12 Phnom Penh Post, Kampong Speu palm sugar: A sweet success story
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Slow Food Foundation, Kampong Speu palm sugar, Ark of Taste (June 27, 2025)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Cambodianess, Organic Palm Sugar Must Come from Natural Trees: Confirel (February 21, 2024)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Khmer Times, Preparing Cambodia's most beloved sweetener in Siem Reap
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 12.7 12.8 VietnamPlus, Khmer people's palm sugar-making craft preserved in An Giang (December 5, 2024)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 VietNamNet, Khmer sugar-making craft shines as national heritage (April 26, 2025)
  14. ↑ An Giang University, A Value Chain of Palm Sugar Products (PDF)
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