Fast — granulates within weeks honey
Granulates within weeks. Frequently sold creamed for exactly that reason.
32 honeys · crystallisation
Honeys in this group
- Rosemary honeyWater white · DelicateDelicate and softly aromatic — floral first, with a thin thread of resin behind it that tells you where it came from.
- Borage honeyWater white · DelicateVery light and very clean, with a faint cucumber-fresh note that fades with age. Sweetness without commentary.
- Sulla honeyWater white · DelicateVery delicate and clean, with a soft almond-and-fresh-grass note and almost no aftertaste.
- Pōhutukawa honeyWater white · MildMild and creamy with a faint salt-and-mineral edge from the coast, and a butterscotch note that emerges as it warms on the tongue.
- Ulmo honeyExtra white · PronouncedStrongly perfumed — jasmine and orange blossom over butterscotch, with a creamy weight that carries it. Aromatic in a way very few honeys are.
- Marri honeyExtra light amber · MildMild, sweet and buttery with a soft caramel warmth and only the faintest eucalypt lift.
- Ethiopian white honeyWater white · MildClean, sweet and faintly herbal, with a smooth dense texture that dominates the impression more than the flavour does.
- Ceanothus honeyWater white · MildDelicate and clean with a light floral sweetness and a faint spicy edge — mild, and rather more interesting than a pale honey usually is.
- Chinese tallow honeyExtra light amber · MildMild and clean with a light floral sweetness and a faint waxy note — an unremarkable flavour attached to a very remarkable ecological situation.
- Rabbitbrush honeyAmber · PronouncedStrong and resinous with a bitter herbal edge and a distinctly medicinal note — one of the more challenging American honeys and an acquired taste at best.
- Kānuka honeyExtra light amber · ModerateSweet, clean and lightly aromatic, with a herbal-resinous thread that hints at its relation to mānuka without any of the medicinal weight.
- Goldenrod honeyLight amber · PronouncedStrong, warm and spicy, with a hay-and-clove character and a slightly astringent finish. Assertive in a way that surprises people expecting an ordinary golden honey.
- Lychee honeyExtra light amber · ModerateDelicately floral with a distinct rose-and-lychee perfume, and a clean sweetness underneath that keeps it from being heavy.
- Cotton honeyExtra white · MildMild and clean with a faint green-vegetal note and very little else — a background honey.
- Blue gum honeyLight amber · PronouncedStrongly medicinal and camphoraceous with a caramel base — the flavour most people mean when they say a honey tastes of eucalyptus.
- Ohia lehua honeyWater white · DelicateDelicate and clean with a distinct fresh-butter quality and a light floral lift — one of the mildest honeys with genuine character rather than none.
- Bashkir linden honeyWater white · PronouncedIntensely aromatic with the mentholated, faintly medicinal lift characteristic of lime, over a clean sweetness — more perfumed than most people expect from so pale a honey.
- Alcarria honeyWater white · ModerateDelicate and aromatic, with a clean herbal sweetness — the rosemary type is softer and more floral, the lavender type more perfumed and slightly camphoraceous.
- Field bean honeyExtra white · MildMild and clean with a faint green-bean vegetal note under a soft sweetness — pleasant and undemanding rather than distinctive.
- Narbonne rosemary honeyWater white · DelicateDelicate and clean with a soft herbal floral note and a texture that does much of the work — one of the classic pale European honeys.
- Strawberry tree honeyAmber · IntenseAggressively bitter — coffee grounds, artichoke and burnt sugar, with the sweetness arriving late and briefly. Nothing in food prepares most people for it.
- Oku white honeyExtra white · MildDelicate and creamy with a light floral character and a faint herbal lift — mild by African standards and distinctly refined.
- Willow honeyExtra white · MildMild, faintly green and quick to set. A spring honey in the literal sense, and one most beekeepers taste and few buyers ever see.
- Blackthorn honeyExtra white · MildDelicate, almondy and fleeting. Recognisably a Prunus honey, and the closest thing in the European catalogue to the taste of a hedge in March.
- Rowan honeyLight amber · ModerateAmber, tart and faintly bitter, with a red-fruit note that echoes the berries the tree is better known for.
- Field maple honeyExtra light amber · ModerateFresh and faintly green with a warm caramel base — a spring honey with rather more body than its colour suggests.
- Plum blossom honeyExtra white · MildLight, sweet and gently almondy, with a soft fruit note behind it. An easy honey and a short-lived one.
- Greek erica honeyAmber · PronouncedDark, malty and faintly bitter, with dried fig and caramel behind it. A robust honey and a distinctly autumnal one.
- Hedgerow honeyExtra light amber · ModerateWarm, floral and slightly grassy, with a caramel base. A good hedgerow honey is a genuinely complex thing that happens not to have a Latin name.
- Niger seed honeyExtra light amber · MildGolden, clean and gently grassy, with a soft finish. Closer to sunflower honey than to the darker forest honeys of the same country.
- Prairie honeyWater white · MildClean, mild and creamy, with a light floral sweetness. The reference point for what a great many people think honey tastes like.
- Five finger honeyExtra white · MildMild, faintly green and slightly waxy, setting hard and pale. A working honey rather than a prestige one.
Plants behind these honeys
- RosemarySalvia rosmarinusThe timing is what makes it exceptional rather than the volume. A high-value plant in March is worth far more to bees than a better plant in July, when everything is flowering.
- EucalyptusEucalyptusProlific in both nectar and pollen when flowering, though the pollen of some species is nutritionally poor for honey bees, and colonies confined to a single eucalypt species can suffer over time despite abundant forage.
- GoldenrodSolidagoTop-rated for both nectar and pollen, delivered at the moment they matter most. For North American beekeeping this is the most important single genus in the second half of the year.
- ThymeThymus
- BlackthornPrunus spinosaGood for both at a moment when almost nothing else of tree scale is open. Its value is the date rather than the quantity.
- Field mapleAcer campestreVery high nectar from a tree most people do not realise is flowering, plus a honeydew contribution later in the season.
- SycamoreAcer pseudoplatanusVery high nectar and good pollen, delivered at tree scale in mid-spring, plus a honeydew contribution later. A single mature sycamore is a serious forage asset.
- White cloverTrifolium repensOne of the very few plants that is both a top-tier nectar source and a substantial pollen source, over a long season, at landscape scale.
Guides covering these honeys
- Why honeys taste and look so differentEvery honey is around 80% sugar. Everything that distinguishes one from another lives in the remaining fifth.
- Creamed, set and whipped honeyCreamed honey has nothing added and nothing whipped into it. It is ordinary honey whose crystallisation has been controlled instead of left to chance, and the technique is a hundred years old.
- Why honey has different texturesRunny, set, creamed, thixotropic and comb are five different things, and only one of them is a processing decision. The rest follow from sugar chemistry and from what the bees put in the jar.
- What makes a honey strongStrong honeys are dark, mineral-rich and usually lower in sweetness than pale ones. Understanding which axis a honey is strong on tells you what to do with it.
- Why some honeys are rareRarity in honey almost always comes down to botany and weather rather than to deliberate restriction. Understanding the mechanism explains why supply swings so violently from year to year.
- How plants decide honey flavourNearly everything that distinguishes one honey from another arrives in the nectar. The bee contributes enzymes and evaporation; the plant contributes everything you taste.
Other crystallisation groups
Narrow it down further
- Honey finder
Which honey should I buy for what I actually want to do with it?
- Flavour selector
I like this taste — which honeys have it?
- Honey comparison
How do these honeys actually differ, beyond colour?
- Honey substitute calculator
How much honey do I use instead of sugar, and what else has to change?
- Storage guide
How should I store honey, and what do I do when it sets?