The Quiet Craft of Khmer Sugar Palm: A Morning in Ampil Commune

The sugar palm is everywhere around Siem Reap, its tall trunk and fan of leaves marking field boundaries and village edges. But to see the craft that turns its sap into jaggery, we head about 15 kilometres east of town into Ampil commune, where several families still tap palms and boil the juice in iron pans over open fires.

Before sunrise in the palms

We leave Siem Reap at first light, when the air is still cool and the road to Ampil is quiet. The tappers are already up. A man in a faded shirt and bare feet walks ahead of us with a bamboo ladder over his shoulder, then leans it against a palm trunk and climbs with quick, practised steps. At the top he cuts a thin slice from the tip of a flower stalk and fits a bamboo tube beneath it to catch the sap. We hear the hollow knock of the tube against the trunk and the rustle of the crown in the breeze.

He climbs five or six palms in the time it takes us to walk a few hundred metres. The tubes are collected later, some already brimming with pale, sweet liquid that smells faintly of coconut and smoke.

The boiling shed

Back at the shed, a low structure of wood and corrugated metal, the sap is poured through a cloth into a wide iron pan set over a brick stove. The fire is fed with palm fronds and coconut husks, and the smoke drifts through the shed and out into the morning. We watch the liquid bubble and darken. It takes a couple of hours of steady boiling and skimming before it thickens into a caramel-coloured syrup.

Nothing is wasted. The tapper’s wife pours the syrup into small bamboo moulds to set into blocks of jaggery, and the foam skimmed from the pan is given to the pigs. The smell in the shed is deep and sweet, and the heat from the fire is a pleasant contrast to the cool morning outside.

What we take away

We buy a few blocks of jaggery wrapped in palm leaf. The taste is smoky and mineral, quite different from the pale sugar we are used to. On the way back we pass more palms and more sheds, some with smoke already rising. The whole visit takes a morning, and we are back in Siem Reap by lunchtime.

Getting there

Ampil commune is about 15 kilometres east of Siem Reap, roughly 30 to 40 minutes by tuk-tuk or motorbike along National Road 6 and then smaller lanes. Ask your host to arrange a driver who knows the area, as the sheds are not signposted. Go early, ideally before 7am, to see the tappers at work and the first pans on the fire. The lanes are sandy in places, so a tuk-tuk is easier than a bicycle.

Good to know

• Bring water and a hat; the shed is hot and shade is limited.
• Ask before taking close-up photographs of the tappers, especially on the ladders.
• Wear shoes you don’t mind getting dusty or muddy.
• Jaggery is sold in blocks wrapped in palm leaf; check locally for current prices and availability.

Planning time in Siem Reap? Melbourne Residence is a quiet residential community of homes near Angkor Wat — explore the neighbourhood.