HoneyHQ

Lychee honey

Delicately floral with a distinct rose-and-lychee perfume, and a clean sweetness underneath that keeps it from being heavy.

MonofloralModerateFloralFruity

A pale, delicately perfumed honey from the lychee orchards of India, China and Southeast Asia, and one of the largest honey crops in the world by volume that almost no Western consumer has met. Lychee honey is light amber, floral and faintly rose-scented, and it granulates quickly — which is why it is so often sold set in its producing regions and so rarely exported liquid.

Flavour and aroma

Aroma
rose, lychee fruit, light blossom, warm sugar
Flavour
rose water, lychee, clean sweetness, a faint muscat note
Finish
Perfumed and medium-length.
Intensity
Moderate
Sweetness
Very sweet
Bitterness
None
Acidity
Low

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour
Extra light amber (34-50 mm Pfund)Light amber (50-85 mm Pfund)

Light amber with a golden cast, bright and clear when fresh.

On setting: Sets to a fine pale cream within a couple of months.

Texture
Runny; Soft set; Creamed; Crystallised
Crystallisation

Fast — granulates within weeks

Glucose-rich and quick to set, generally within four to eight weeks. Much of the domestic crop is sold already granulated and nobody regards it as a fault.

Typical composition

Moisture
16–20.5% (typically 18.2%)
Fructose
36–41% (typically 38.5%)
Glucose
33–39% (typically 36%)
Glucose-to-fructose ratio
0.88–1.06 (typically 0.95)
pH
3.5–4.3 (typically 3.9)
Electrical conductivity
0.15–0.45 mS/cm (typically 0.28 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
Litchi chinensis, in the soapberry family alongside longan. The flowers are small, greenish-yellow and borne in large sprays.
Origins
Bihar and West Bengal in India — Muzaffarpur is the centre of the trade — plus Guangdong and Fujian in China, northern Vietnam and Thailand.
Origin pages

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

Harvest
March to April (northern hemisphere)

Very short — two to three weeks — and hives are moved into the orchards specifically for it.

The bees
Lychee depends substantially on insect pollination for fruit set, so the relationship is genuinely mutual. Indian beekeeping around Muzaffarpur is organised almost entirely around this three-week window, with colonies moved on to mustard and other crops afterwards.
Usual processing
Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Creamed (seeded and controlled-set), Filtered

What to do with it

Best cold and unheated, where the rose note survives. Excellent with tropical fruit and in cocktails; wasted in cooking.

At the tableDessertsIn hot drinksDrizzlingIn cocktailsSpreading

Pairings

  • Tropical fruitClassic

    The honey already carries the fruit's own perfume; this extends it.

  • Yoghurt and kulfiClassic

    Plain cool dairy is the best carrier for a floral honey, and the regional one.

  • Sparkling wine and gin

    The rose-muscat register belongs naturally in both.

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

Sources

  • HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
  • Analytical approaches to honey authentication — Peer-reviewed food-analysis literature · Peer-reviewed article

How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.

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