Palm Sugar (Nam Tan Pip): Selection and Use

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Palm sugar — made from the sap of the palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) or coconut palm — is the primary sweetener of the Thai kitchen and one of the most important differences between a correctly seasoned Thai dish and one made with white sugar. Its flavour is not merely sweet: it carries caramel notes, a slight butterscotch depth, and a trace of fermented complexity from the sap's natural fermentation during collection. These secondary flavour compounds are what make palm sugar the correct sweetener for Thai preparations — white sugar provides only sweetness; palm sugar provides sweetness with depth.

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Palm sugar's secondary compounds (including 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and various caramelisation products formed during the sun-drying and pressing of the palm sugar cakes) place it in a different aromatic category from white sugar. As Segnit notes, caramel-family compounds have an intrinsic affinity with coconut (which shares caramel-adjacent aromatic compounds from its roasted fats) — this is why palm sugar and coconut milk together taste more complex and 'complete' than sucrose and coconut milk, even before any other ingredient is added.