Glucose

Definition

A simple sugar making up roughly 24 to 40 per cent of honey. Because it is less soluble than fructose, it comes out of solution first as honey ages, forming the crystals of a set honey. A honey's glucose share is the single best predictor of how fast it will granulate.

Honey records that discuss this

• Acacia honeyClean, light and sweet with almost nothing in the way. The honey to reach for when you want sweetness without a flavour opinion.
• Clover honeyWarm, mild and rounded — sweet with a faint cinnamon-and-hay note underneath. The taste most English-speaking readers picture when they read the word honey.
• Rosemary honeyDelicate and softly aromatic — floral first, with a thin thread of resin behind it that tells you where it came from.
• Rapeseed honeyVery sweet, very mild, faintly cabbage-like when fresh and cleanly bland once set. Texture is what it has instead of flavour.
• Tupelo honeyButtery and clean with a pear-and-green-apple lift, and a long soft finish that never turns cloying.
• Borage honeyVery light and very clean, with a faint cucumber-fresh note that fades with age. Sweetness without commentary.
• Ivy honeyStrong, faintly bitter and distinctly herbal — closer to a dark honey in character than its pale colour suggests.
• Sage honeyMild, clean and slightly herbal, with a heavy silky body that is more of the experience than the flavour is.
• Sulla honeyVery delicate and clean, with a soft almond-and-fresh-grass note and almost no aftertaste.
• Gallberry honeyMild and clean with a soft floral warmth and a faint bitterness on the finish that the name hints at without quite delivering.
• Pōhutukawa honeyMild and creamy with a faint salt-and-mineral edge from the coast, and a butterscotch note that emerges as it warms on the tongue.
• Ethiopian white honeyClean, sweet and faintly herbal, with a smooth dense texture that dominates the impression more than the flavour does.