Field maple honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

green sap, warm hay, beeswax

Flavour

light caramel, green stem, malt, faint vanilla

Finish

Medium, warm and clean.

Flavour character

• Green and herbal — vegetal
• Warm and cooked — caramel
• Earthy and mineral — waxy

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 — this honey
5. Light amber50–85 mm — this honey
6. Amber85–114 mm
7. Dark amber114+ mm

Pale gold with a distinctly greenish cast when fresh.

On setting: Sets pale and fine, losing the green tint.

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.

A glucose-leaning spring honey that sets within weeks. Most maple honey reaches the customer creamed for that reason.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–19% (typically 17.5%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

1–1.2 (typically 1.1)

pH

3.8–4.4 (typically 4.1)

These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey. Ranges typical of European spring tree honeys. Field maple is rarely separated in published compositional work.

What these mean: the sugars and the ratio · moisture · conductivity · how each is measured

Where it comes from

Floral source

Acer campestre, generally worked alongside sycamore and Norway maple where all three occur, so the honey is frequently a maple blend rather than a single species.

Origins

Hedgerow and woodland-edge landscapes across western and central Europe.

Origin pages

• Europe
• France
• United Kingdom

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

Typical harvest

April to May (northern hemisphere)

A compressed spring flow that coincides with maximum brood rearing, so a surplus is only taken from strong colonies.

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

The bees

Small greenish flowers with fully exposed nectaries, held in upright clusters. Nothing is excluded, and the trees hum audibly for the fortnight they are open.

Usual processing

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

Frequently blended into a spring hedgerow honey rather than separated, because field maple, sycamore and hawthorn overlap.

What to do with it

A good everyday honey — enough body for tea, enough set for toast, and cheap enough to bake with where it is produced.

At the tableSpreadingBakingIn hot drinksDesserts

Pairings

• Buttered toastClassic

  Sets soft and spreads cleanly, which is most of what a breakfast honey needs to do.

• Young Gouda

  The honey's caramel meets the cheese's nuttiness without either having to shout.

• Rhubarb

  A warm honey against a very sharp fruit, added after cooking so the fresh green note survives.

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

Field maple was a standard hedgerow and pollard tree across lowland England and northern France for centuries, valued for firewood and for its fine timber. The bee value was a by-product nobody was recording.