Assa-peixe honey
Mild, clean and gently floral with a soft caramel warmth and a slightly herbal finish.
Mel de assa-peixe
One of Brazil's most important honeys, from a shrubby composite that colonises abandoned pasture and roadside across the southeast. Assa-peixe flowers in dense creamy plumes at the end of the dry season, when little else does, and yields a light, mild, delicately floral honey that has become the country's benchmark table jar.
Flavour and aroma
- Aroma
- light blossom, warm hay, clean wax, faint herb
- Flavour
- gentle floral, light caramel, clean sweetness
- Finish
- Medium and clean.
- Intensity
- Mild
- Sweetness
- Very sweet
- Bitterness
- None
- Acidity
- Low
Colour, texture and crystallisation
- Colour
- Extra light amber (34-50 mm Pfund)Light amber (50-85 mm Pfund)
Light amber, bright and clear.
On setting: Sets to a fine pale cream.
- Texture
- Runny; Thick but pourable; Soft set
- Crystallisation
Moderate — granulates over a few months
Granulates over a few months with fine crystals.
Typical composition
- Moisture
- 16–20% (typically 17.8%)
- Fructose
- 37–43% (typically 40%)
- Glucose
- 30–36% (typically 33%)
- Glucose-to-fructose ratio
- 0.74–0.92 (typically 0.82)
- pH
- 3.6–4.4 (typically 4)
- Electrical conductivity
- 0.15–0.5 mS/cm (typically 0.3 mS/cm)
These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey.
What these mean: the sugars and the ratio · moisture · conductivity · how each is measured
Where it comes from
- Floral source
- Vernonia polyanthes and related species, in the daisy family. It is a pioneer of disturbed ground, so the resource has grown as pasture has been abandoned.
- Origins
- Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná in southeastern Brazil.
- Origin pages
Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.
- Harvest
- April to July (southern hemisphere)
The end of the Brazilian dry season, when it is often the only substantial nectar source in the landscape.
- The bees
- Worked overwhelmingly by Africanized honey bees, which dominate Brazilian beekeeping and are — despite their reputation — highly productive and well suited to the climate. Native stingless bees work it heavily too.
- Usual processing
- Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Filtered, Raw
Brazil is one of the world's largest honey exporters, and much of what it ships is organic-certified honey from wild and semi-wild flora rather than from planted crops — a genuinely unusual position among large producers.
What to do with it
Brazil's everyday honey, and a genuinely versatile one — mild enough for anything and cheap enough to cook with domestically.
At the tableSpreadingIn hot drinksBakingDessertsDressings
Pairings
- Fresh cheese and pão de queijoClassic
The domestic pairing, and both are mild enough not to compete.
- Tropical fruit
Adds sweetness without covering the fruit.
- Coffee
Dissolves cleanly and adds nothing that would fight the roast.
Pairing pages this honey appears on
Selected by this honey’s own recorded intensity, flavour families and uses rather than by anything written above — each page prints the rule that put it there.
Where this honey sits in the catalogue
Sources
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
- FAOSTAT production and trade statistics — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · Government statistics
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides that cover this honey
Tools for choosing and using honey
- Honey finder
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- Flavour selector
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- Honey comparison
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- Honey substitute calculator
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- Storage guide
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