Dandelion honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

chamomile, warm hay, a barnyard note when fresh, faint ammonia

Flavour

sharp floral, hay, a bitter herbal edge, strong sweetness underneath

Finish

Assertive and slightly bitter, longer than expected.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — floral
• Green and herbal — herbaceous
• Earthy and mineral — animal and barnyard

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 — this honey
6. Amber85–114 mm — this honey
7. Dark amber114+ mm

Vivid deep yellow, noticeably more saturated than most honeys of similar Pfund grade — the colour is the first thing people comment on.

On setting: Sets to a hard, bright yellow-cream, keeping much of the colour.

Texture

Crystallised; Soft set; Thick but pourable

Crystallisation

Very fast, step 5 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Very fast — can set in the comb before it is extracted; sets with a coarse crystal.

Very high glucose, comparable to oilseed rape, and it sets within weeks — often within days of extraction. Unlike rapeseed the crystals tend to be coarse rather than fine, so the set can be noticeably grainy unless it is deliberately creamed.

Typical composition

Moisture

15–19% (typically 17%)

Fructose

34–39% (typically 36.5%)

Glucose

36–42% (typically 39%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.98–1.18 (typically 1.07)

pH

3.7–4.5 (typically 4.1)

Electrical conductivity

0.2–0.6 mS/cm (typically 0.35 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

What laboratories and tasting panels measured

Where it comes from

Floral source

Taraxacum officinale in the broad sense — an aggregate of hundreds of largely apomictic microspecies, which is a taxonomic mess with no practical consequence for the honey.

Origins

Poland, the Baltic states, alpine Austria and Switzerland, and upland Britain. Rarely a named product in North America despite abundant dandelion.

Origin pages

• United Kingdom
• Poland
• Austria
• Switzerland
• The Alps

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

Typical harvest

April to May (northern hemisphere)

One of the first flows of the year. In much of Europe it arrives while colonies are still expanding, so it is consumed rather than stored as surplus.

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

The bees

Dandelion is an important early pollen source as well as a nectar one, arriving exactly when colonies need protein to raise brood. That timing is why the common advice to leave dandelions uncut in April does real work, even though the honey itself rarely reaches a jar.

What counts as monofloral

No official threshold. A genuinely monofloral dandelion honey is uncommon outside grassland regions with an early flush and little competing bloom, such as parts of the Alps, Poland and the Baltic states.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Creamed (seeded and controlled-set), Pressed, Raw

Extraction has to be prompt for the same reason as rapeseed — a week's delay can leave the honey set solid in the frames. Many beekeepers simply leave the dandelion flow for the colony to use as spring build-up.

What to do with it

A spreading and cooking honey rather than a delicate one. Its assertiveness survives baking, which most honeys' does not, and the set texture is good on bread. It is a poor choice for tea.

SpreadingBakingWith cheeseGlazing and roasting

Pairings

• Rye and pumpernickel

  Both are strong and slightly sour; the honey does not have to be polite.

• Washed-rind cheeses

  The honey's own barnyard note is in the same family as the rind's, which turns a clash into a continuity.

• Spiced honey cake

  One of the few honeys whose character is still detectable after an hour in the oven.

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

Dandelion's status as a weed is recent and cultural. It was introduced to North America deliberately as a food and medicinal plant, and the twentieth-century lawn aesthetic turned a useful early forage plant into a target for herbicide — which is the underlying reason a common flower yields an uncommon honey.

• Used in central and eastern Europe as the first honey of the year, with a spring tonic reputation resting on tradition rather than on trial evidence.

Traditional use records that people have done something, and for how long. It is not evidence that it works.