Maple syrup is highly, highly concentrated sap. The sap itself is mostly 99%+ water, with just a slight sweetness to it. To make syrup, you have to boil away almost all of that water, going from gallons of sap to only a small amount of syrup.
That boiling process and amount of sap required is partly why it's so expensive. It's like aged whisky: you lose so much of what you started with.
But most people don’t consume maple syrup, they consume high fructose corn syrup with artificial flavoring. You have to go out of your way and pay a lot more $$$ to get “real” maple syrup. For example, the ingredient list from Aunt Jemima syrup:
CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WATER, CELLULOSE GUM, CARAMEL COLOR, SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SODIUM BENZOATE AND SORBIC ACID PRESERVATIVES , SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE
maybe its because I'm Canadian but no one I know would consume anything but real maple syrup, I never encountered anything else until I went to the states.
Making maple syrup from sap is an illuminating experience. You have to reduce something like 40x the volume of sap to create the desired quantity of syrup.
