Goji honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

light red fruit, fresh hay, soft florals

Flavour

soft berry, light caramel, faint herbs

Finish

Short and clean.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — fruity, floral

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, clear and bright.

On setting: Sets to a smooth pale cream.

Texture

Runny; Thick but pourable; Soft set

Crystallisation

Slow, step 2 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Slow — months before it starts to granulate; sets with a fine crystal.

Slow and fine, which suits a honey generally sold liquid in the Chinese market.

Typical composition

Moisture

15–19% (typically 17%)

Fructose

37–42% (typically 39%)

Glucose

29–35% (typically 32%)

pH

3.6–4.4 (typically 4)

Electrical conductivity

0.2–0.5 mS/cm (typically 0.3 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

Lycium barbarum, goji or wolfberry, grown in irrigated plantations on the arid plains of Ningxia and Gansu.

Origins

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and neighbouring Gansu and Inner Mongolia, northwestern China.

Origin pages

• China
• Mongolia

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

Typical harvest

June to September (northern hemisphere)

Flowering runs in flushes through the summer, giving several successive harvests.

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

The bees

Chinese commercial beekeeping is the largest in the world by colony number, and migratory operations follow crops across the country. Goji is a mid-season stop between the spring rape and the autumn jujube.

Usual processing

Raw, Coarsely strained, Spun (centrifugally extracted), Filtered

Migratory beekeeping supplies the goji plantations, and pesticide programmes on a high-value fruit crop are the principal risk to colonies working it.

What to do with it

An everyday honey in China, taken in warm water and tea. It has no character that requires accommodation.

At the tableIn hot drinksSpreadingDesserts

Pairings

• Chrysanthemum and green teaClassic

  The traditional Chinese use, and the honey is mild enough not to bury the infusion.

• Plain congee and rice porridge

  A mild honey on a plain base.

• Fresh soft cheeses

  Both mild.

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

Goji cultivation in Ningxia is centuries old and was industrialised in the twentieth century. The honey followed the plantations rather than the other way round.

• Goji berries themselves have long-standing use in Chinese medicine; the honey is a modern by-product of the plantations rather than part of that tradition.

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