Longan honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

dried longan fruit, caramel, musk, warm spice

Flavour

dark caramel, dried fruit, a musky floral depth, faint smoke

Finish

Very long and perfumed.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — fruity, floral
• Warm and cooked — caramel
• Spicy and sharp — spicy

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

Warm amber, clear and bright, with a slightly reddish cast in older honey.

On setting: Slow to set; a fine light-brown grain when it does.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny

Crystallisation

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

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

Fructose-leaning and slow to granulate, which suits a honey produced and sold in a hot climate where crystallisation is rarely encountered anyway.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–20% (typically 18%)

Fructose

38–44% (typically 41%)

Glucose

28–34% (typically 31%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.66–0.85 (typically 0.76)

pH

3.6–4.4 (typically 4)

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. Moisture runs higher than in temperate honeys, which is normal for honey ripened in a humid tropical climate and is why prompt handling matters more there.

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

Where it comes from

Floral source

Dimocarpus longan, in the soapberry family alongside lychee and rambutan. The flowers are small, pale yellow and borne in large panicles.

Origins

Northern Thailand — Chiang Mai and Lamphun in particular — plus Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian in China, and northern Vietnam.

Origin pages

• Asia
• China
• Southeast Asia
• Thailand
• Vietnam

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

Typical harvest

February to April (northern hemisphere)

A short intense flow, and one of the earliest of the year in the region.

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

The bees

Worked by both the introduced western honey bee and the native Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, which is still widely kept across the region. Longan orchards are a major destination for migratory beekeeping in Thailand.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Filtered

What to do with it

Excellent in tea and in Southeast Asian desserts, and strong enough to be used in marinades. Its aromatics are heat-sensitive, so add it late.

At the tableIn hot drinksDessertsDrizzlingMarinadesGlazing and roasting

Pairings

• Jasmine and oolong teaClassic

  The regional pairing; both are floral-aromatic and neither needs to give ground.

• Sticky rice and coconut dessertsClassic

  The honey supplies caramel and perfume to something built on texture and fat.

• Ginger and lime

  Sharp aromatics against a musky sweet one, which stops it becoming cloying.

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

• Widely used across southern China and Thailand as a tonic honey, on the strength of the longan fruit's long-established place in Chinese medicine rather than on any evidence about the honey.

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