Vegetal honey
Green, stalky and slightly waxy. An unfashionable family containing several genuinely useful cooking honeys.
34 honeys · flavour family
Honeys in this group
- Rapeseed honeyWater white · MildVery sweet, very mild, faintly cabbage-like when fresh and cleanly bland once set. Texture is what it has instead of flavour.
- Borage honeyWater white · DelicateVery light and very clean, with a faint cucumber-fresh note that fades with age. Sweetness without commentary.
- Ivy honeyExtra white · PronouncedStrong, faintly bitter and distinctly herbal — closer to a dark honey in character than its pale colour suggests.
- Sulla honeyWater white · DelicateVery delicate and clean, with a soft almond-and-fresh-grass note and almost no aftertaste.
- Asphodel honeyWater white · DelicateDelicate and softly perfumed with a fresh, almost vegetal lift and a silky weight that gives it more presence than the flavour alone would.
- Milk vetch honeyWater white · MildSoft, mild and slightly floral with a faint green-bean freshness — an unassuming honey made in enormous quantity.
- Snowberry honeyExtra white · MildMild and clean with a soft floral sweetness and a faint green note — pleasant and unassertive.
- Sunflower honeyExtra light amber · ModerateStraw, beeswax and pollen, with a slightly waxy mouthfeel and a fresh, faintly herbal edge.
- Alfalfa honeyExtra white · MildMild, clean and slightly grassy, with a beeswax note and very little else. A background honey, and good at being one.
- Blueberry honeyExtra light amber · ModerateTangy and lightly fruity with a green, slightly astringent edge — recognisably related to the berry without tasting of jam.
- Mustard honeyExtra white · MildVery sweet and very mild with a faint pungent brassica note when fresh, fading to clean blandness as it ages and sets.
- Cotton honeyExtra white · MildMild and clean with a faint green-vegetal note and very little else — a background honey.
- Rubber tree honeyLight amber · MildMild and slightly vegetal with a light caramel warmth — an unremarkable flavour attached to a genuinely remarkable production story.
- Field bean honeyExtra white · MildMild and clean with a faint green-bean vegetal note under a soft sweetness — pleasant and undemanding rather than distinctive.
- 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.
- Tea blossom honeyExtra light amber · ModerateMild and creamy with a distinct faint bitterness and a green vegetal note that is recognisably tea-like — an unusual profile and a divisive one.
- Neem honeyAmber · IntenseDistinctly bitter with a herbal, faintly medicinal character over a restrained sweetness — one of the least conventionally pleasant honeys in the catalogue, and deliberately so.
- 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.
- Pear blossom honeyWater white · DelicateVery light and faintly green, with a clean sweetness and almost nothing behind it. Notable chiefly for how hard it is to get.
- 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.
- Motherwort honeyExtra light amber · ModerateClean and lightly herbal with a faint bitterness at the end — a summer honey that tastes of the plant rather than of sugar.
- Cardoon honeyLight amber · PronouncedSavoury and faintly bitter, with a warm caramel body and an unmistakable green-vegetable note that is genuinely artichoke-like.
- 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.
- Spring blossom honeyExtra white · MildMild, creamy and clean, with a faint cabbagey note where rape dominates. An easy honey and a spreadable one.
- Moringa honeyExtra light amber · ModerateGreen, peppery and faintly vegetal over a light sweetness — recognisably related to the mustard-oil chemistry running through the whole plant.
- Oil-tea camellia honeyWater white · ModeratePale, thin and distinctly bitter, with an astringent tea-like finish. Not a beginner's honey and not really a pleasure honey.
- Pagoda tree honeyExtra white · MildLight, clean and gently floral with a faint green edge — an unassertive honey produced in very large quantities.
- 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.
- Oil palm honeyLight amber · ModerateVariable by definition. Generally warm and mildly caramel-led, taking its character from whatever grew between and around the palms.
- Soybean honeyWater white · MildVery pale and very mild, with a clean light sweetness and almost nothing to distinguish it. Its virtue is neutrality.
- Safflower honeyExtra light amber · MildLight amber and mildly nutty, with a faint thistle bitterness at the finish. Unassertive and rather more interesting than most crop honeys.
- Carrot seed honeyAmber · PronouncedDark, savoury and faintly medicinal, with a green umbellifer note and a slightly bitter finish. A challenging honey and an interesting one.
- Tiaca honeyExtra light amber · MildSoft, floral and clean — gentler and less aromatic than ulmo from the same forest, and easier to eat in quantity.
- 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
- 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.
- Oilseed rapeBrassica napusTop-rated for both nectar and pollen, and delivered at exactly the moment colonies are expanding fastest in spring. Its faults are entirely about what comes after.
- Goat willowSalix capreaThe single most important early-season pollen source across much of Europe. Its value is not in yielding honey but in what it makes possible six weeks later.
- Field mapleAcer campestreVery high nectar from a tree most people do not realise is flowering, plus a honeydew contribution later in the season.
- DandelionTaraxacum officinaleThe pollen is what makes it critical. It arrives when colonies are expanding fastest and have the least in reserve, and bumblebee queens emerging from hibernation depend on early sources like this one to found a nest at all.
- BorageBorago officinalisOne of the few plants that genuinely deserves the top rating for nectar, and it earns it through replenishment rate rather than through abundance of flowers.
- IvyHedera helixOne of the very few plants that is top-rated for both nectar and pollen, and it delivers them when the year's other options have finished. For overwintering insects this is decisive.
- AsphodelAsphodelus ramosusA major early nectar source in country that offers little else at that season, and rated highly for pollen as well.
Guides covering these honeys
- Why honey crystallisesGranulation is not spoilage, not a sign of adulteration, and not evidence that honey is raw. It is glucose doing what glucose does — and the rate is predictable from the sugar ratio.
- Raw, filtered and processed honeyWhat actually happens between the hive and the jar, which of it changes the honey, and why the word 'raw' carries less information than it appears to.
- 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 comes in different coloursHoney runs from nearly colourless to almost black, and the colour is set mainly by the plant. It correlates loosely with intensity, more strongly with mineral content, and not at all with quality.
- 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.
Other flavour family groups
Narrow it down further
- Honey finder
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- 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?