Karanj honey
Warm and herbal with a faint bitterness and a light caramel base — mild by Indian standards and more interesting than its modest reputation suggests.
करंज शहद
An Indian honey from pongamia, a nitrogen-fixing legume tree planted along roads and canals across the subcontinent and increasingly for biofuel. It flowers heavily in the pre-monsoon heat when little else does, which makes it a significant colony-building flow, and the honey has a distinctive slightly bitter herbal edge.
Flavour and aroma
- Aroma
- warm herbs, light caramel, green leaf
- Flavour
- herbs, caramel, faint bitterness
- Finish
- Medium and slightly herbal.
- Intensity
- Moderate
- Sweetness
- Sweet
- Bitterness
- Trace
- Acidity
- Moderate
Colour, texture and crystallisation
- Colour
- Light amber (50-85 mm Pfund)Amber (85-114 mm Pfund)
Golden to warm amber.
On setting: Sets to a smooth pale gold.
- Texture
- Runny; Thick but pourable; Soft set
- Crystallisation
Moderate — granulates over a few months
A moderate fine set, typical of legume tree honeys.
Typical composition
- Moisture
- 17–21% (typically 19%)
- Fructose
- 36–41% (typically 38%)
- Glucose
- 29–35% (typically 32%)
- pH
- 3.6–4.4 (typically 4)
- Electrical conductivity
- 0.2–0.7 mS/cm (typically 0.4 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
- Pongamia pinnata, karanj or Indian beech, a leguminous tree of roadsides, canal banks and coastal scrub.
- Origins
- India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and increasingly in biofuel plantations elsewhere in the tropics.
- Origin pages
Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.
- Harvest
- March to May (northern hemisphere)
A pre-monsoon flow in the hottest part of the Indian year.
- The bees
- Worked heavily by all the Indian hive bees in a season when forage is otherwise thin. Its timing makes it more valuable for colony survival than for surplus.
- Usual processing
- Raw, Coarsely strained, Spun (centrifugally extracted), Pressed
Karanj is planted extensively along Indian roads and canals and increasingly in biofuel schemes, which has expanded the honey resource considerably.
What to do with it
An everyday Indian honey. Its slight bitterness keeps it from cloying and it works well in warm water.
At the tableIn hot drinksSpreadingBaking
Pairings
- Plain flatbread
The ordinary local use.
- Fresh curd
Mild honey on a sour base.
Pairing pages this honey appears on
Selected by this honey’s own recorded intensity, flavour families and uses rather than by anything written above — each page prints the rule that put it there.
Where this honey sits in the catalogue
History and traditional use
Karanj has been planted for shade, green manure and lamp oil across India for centuries, and its recent expansion is driven by interest in it as a biodiesel feedstock.
- Pongamia oil and seed have long-standing Ayurvedic use for skin conditions; the honey has a lesser and more general traditional reputation.
Traditional use records that people have done something, and for how long. It is not evidence that it works.
Sources
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Tools for choosing and using honey
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