Five finger honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

green leaf, beeswax, faint blossom

Flavour

clean sugar, green stem, beeswax, faint caramel

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, sometimes with a faint green cast.

On setting: Sets almost white and fine-grained.

Texture

Soft set; Creamed; Crystallised; Runny

Crystallisation

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

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

Granulates quickly, in the manner of the ivy honey it is closely related to. Most of it sets before it is sold.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–19% (typically 17.5%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

1–1.25 (typically 1.12)

pH

3.7–4.4 (typically 4)

These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey. A glucose-leaning ratio consistent with the rapid set and with the Araliaceae honeys generally.

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

Where it comes from

Floral source

Pseudopanax arboreus, abundant in lowland New Zealand forest and in regenerating scrub on cleared land.

Origins

Throughout New Zealand, in lowland and lower montane forest.

Origin pages

• New Zealand
• South Island, New Zealand

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

Typical harvest

May to August (southern hemisphere)

Winter flowering, which is the whole basis of its importance. Rarely extracted — most of it feeds the colony.

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

The bees

Small open flowers with fully exposed nectaries on a large umbel-like head, accessible to everything — the same architecture that makes ivy so valuable in the northern hemisphere autumn, and used at the same point in the colony's year.

Usual processing

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

Usually left for the colony rather than extracted, because taking a winter flow from a colony that needs it is poor practice.

What to do with it

A spreading honey. Its fast hard set is the practical point of it and its flavour is deliberately unremarkable.

SpreadingAt the tableIn hot drinksBaking

Pairings

• Buttered toast

  Sets soft enough to spread cleanly and stays where it is put.

• Porridge

  Enough body to survive a bowl of starch.

• Milky tea

  Mild enough to sweeten without changing the cup.

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

Five finger regenerates readily on cleared land, which means New Zealand's history of forest clearance has left the country with rather more winter forage than the original forest may have offered — an unusual case of clearance helping bees.