Cashew honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

resin, tart fruit, caramel, green wood

Flavour

tangy fruit, resin, caramel, astringency

Finish

Long, tangy and drying.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — fruity
• Warm and cooked — caramel
• Woody and resinous — resinous

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

1. Water white0–8 mm
2. Extra white8–17 mm
3. White17–34 mm
4. Extra light amber34–50 mm
5. Light amber50–85 mm
6. Amber85–114 mm — this honey
7. Dark amber114+ mm — this honey

Deep amber to reddish-brown.

On setting: Sets to a dark opaque tan.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny; Soft set

Crystallisation

Moderate, step 3 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Moderate — granulates over a few months; sets with a medium crystal.

A moderate set with a medium grain.

Typical composition

Moisture

17–22% (typically 19%)

Fructose

35–41% (typically 38%)

Glucose

28–34% (typically 31%)

pH

3.5–4.4 (typically 3.9)

Electrical conductivity

0.4–1 mS/cm (typically 0.6 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

Anacardium occidentale, cashew, grown in orchards across the tropics on poor sandy soils.

Origins

Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Brazil, India and Vietnam.

Origin pages

• Africa
• Vietnam
• Tanzania
• Mozambique

Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.

Typical harvest

November to February (northern hemisphere)

A dry-season flow, with timing varying by hemisphere and region.

A typical window for the honey type, HoneyHQ synthesis — not a calendar for any one place.

The bees

Cashew is strongly dependent on insect pollination and nut set rises substantially where bees are present. This makes cashew one of the crops where hive placement is genuinely worth paying for, and beekeeping and cashew production are increasingly promoted together in West Africa.

Usual processing

Raw, Coarsely strained, Spun (centrifugally extracted), Cut comb

Cashew orchards on poor sandy soils across West Africa are expanding fast, and the honey resource with them. Insecticide use during flowering is the principal risk to colonies.

What to do with it

Its acidity and weight make it a cooking honey. It glazes well and stands up in savoury sauces.

At the tableGlazing and roastingMarinadesBakingWith cheese

Pairings

• Cashews and roasted nuts

  The honey and the nut from the same tree, though they taste rather different.

• Grilled chicken and pork

  Acidity and resin work on grilled meat.

• Aged cheeses

  Tang against salt.

Similar honeys and substitutes

Three different questions with different answers: a honey that tastes alike can behave differently in a recipe, and the same set texture says nothing about flavour. Each list is chosen from the recorded fields that matter to its question — and, where tasting panels or specifications described both honeys, the terms they share — and every suggestion says which, and what will be different. Compare it side by side or build a tasting flight.

History and traditional use

Cashew is native to northeastern Brazil and was carried to India and East Africa by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century. West Africa is now the largest producing region, and the honey has followed the orchards.