Thumbtacked to the rough wooden siding of Davenport Maple Farm Restaurant in Shelburne is a sign with two arrows pointing in opposite directions. I squint in the Sunday morning sunlight to read the red-markered letters: left for the restaurant; right for the evaporator room.

My stomach is growling for bacon, sausage, cinnamon raisin french toast, and fresh-cooked maple baked beans, so I head into the restaurant. But during this short sugaring season, delicious breakfast outings come with long waits. So I kill half an hour in the evaporator room, a rustic, high-ceilinged holding pen designed to preoccupy the hungry hordes.

Goods for sale are lined up on a table: syrup, maple spread, maple granulated sugar, maple cashews and peanuts, and maple cranberries. Someone has stacked jars of gradated maple syrup into a colorful grid that fills one big, shining window, like stained glass. Old cattle yokes are mounted high above our heads, as is a crosscut ice saw. Below the saw is a handwritten description: “Purchased new 1927. Used one winter 1927-1928. Electricity came 1928.”

But the main attraction here is the evaporator. Visitors peer through clouds of vapor into the steaming pans of sap. Condensation drips from the hood, which collects the distilled water as it rises. In the giant stove beneath the pans, the wood fire booms with energy. Standing close, you can feel the heat thundering in your head.

The Davenport farm has been here since 1913, but each year brings new visitors for breakfast — today’s parking lot includes license plates from Connecticut, New York, Kentucky, and Virginia — and this boiling behemoth is the heart of the whole operation.•

— Hunter Styles, hstyles@valleyadvocate.com