Cotton honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

green leaf, warm hay, clean wax

Flavour

clean sweetness, a faint vegetal edge, light butter

Finish

Short and clean.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — floral
• Green and herbal — vegetal
• Earthy and mineral — waxy

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

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

Pale straw to light gold, clear and bright.

On setting: Sets to a fine pale cream.

Texture

Runny; Soft set; Creamed

Crystallisation

Fast, step 4 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Fast — granulates within weeks; sets with a fine crystal.

Glucose-leaning and quick to granulate, generally within a couple of months, with fine crystals.

Typical composition

Moisture

15–18.5% (typically 16.8%)

Fructose

36–41% (typically 38.5%)

Glucose

33–38% (typically 35.5%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.88–1.04 (typically 0.94)

pH

3.7–4.5 (typically 4.1)

Electrical conductivity

0.15–0.45 mS/cm (typically 0.28 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

Gossypium hirsutum principally. The extrafloral nectaries evolved to recruit ants as bodyguards against herbivores, and honey bees are opportunists exploiting a system built for something else.

Origins

Texas, Mississippi, Arizona and California; India, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Brazil and Australia.

Origin pages

• Egypt
• Pakistan
• Sudan
• United States
• Texas

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

Typical harvest

June to September (northern hemisphere)

A long window, because the extrafloral nectaries secrete for much of the growing season rather than only during bloom.

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

The bees

Cotton is largely self-pollinating, so the relationship is one-sided — the bees gain far more than the crop does, though bee visitation does raise yields modestly. The serious complication is chemical: cotton is among the most heavily insecticide-treated crops in the world, and pesticide exposure is a real and recurring problem for colonies working it.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Filtered, Creamed (seeded and controlled-set), Coarsely strained

Largely sold blended rather than as a named type. Its interest is biological rather than gastronomic: it is the clearest common example of honey made substantially from extrafloral nectar.

What to do with it

A general-purpose honey with nothing to lose in an oven. It is one of the honeys most likely to be inside an unlabelled blend.

At the tableSpreadingBakingIn hot drinksSauces

Pairings

• Biscuits and plain baking

  Sweetness without character, which is what a strongly flavoured recipe wants.

• Tea

  Dissolves easily and adds nothing that would compete.

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.