Pagoda tree honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

pea flower, green stem, light blossom, beeswax

Flavour

clean sugar, green bean, faint vanilla, light floral

Finish

Short and clean.

Intensity

Mild

Sweetness

Very sweet

Bitterness

None

Acidity

Low

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

Extra white (8-17 mm Pfund)toWhite (17-34 mm Pfund)toExtra light amber (34-50 mm Pfund)

Pale straw with a faint greenish cast.

On setting: Sets to a fine white grain.

Texture

Runny; Soft set

Crystallisation

Slow — months before it starts to granulate

A fructose-leaning ratio keeps it liquid for months, which is part of why it is commercially convenient.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–20% (typically 18%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.7–0.9 (typically 0.8)

pH

3.6–4.3 (typically 3.9)

Electrical conductivity

0.15–0.4 mS/cm (typically 0.25 mS/cm)

These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey. Low conductivity and a strongly fructose-leaning ratio put it close to acacia honey compositionally, which is why the two are sometimes blended.

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

Where it comes from

Floral source

Styphnolobium japonicum, long known as Sophora japonica. Planted enormously as a street and shelterbelt tree across northern China, which is why the flow is so reliable.

Origins

Northern and central China — Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Shaanxi — with production in Korea and Japan.

Origin pages

• China
• Asia

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

Harvest

July to August (northern hemisphere)

High summer, filling the gap between the acacia flow in May and the autumn crops.

The bees

A pea-family flower that needs a visitor with enough weight to trip the keel, which suits honey bees well and excludes the smallest visitors.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Filtered

One of China's largest monofloral crops by volume, and much of it is exported in bulk for blending rather than sold under its own name.

What to do with it

A general-purpose mild honey. It sweetens without contributing an opinion, which is exactly what a great deal of cooking wants.

At the tableIn hot drinksBakingDessertsSpreadingDrizzling

Pairings

• Green and jasmine teaClassic

  Delicate enough not to bury a lightly brewed Chinese green tea, which most honeys would.

• Fresh soy curd

  The traditional Chinese pairing — a very mild sweet honey over a very mild set curd.

• Steamed pears

  A standard northern Chinese winter preparation, and the honey's mildness is the point rather than a limitation.

History and traditional use

The scholar tree was planted at Confucian academies and imperial sites for centuries, which is why it is so abundant along old roads and in old cities — the honey is a by-product of a planting tradition with nothing to do with bees.

• Scholar tree flower buds are used as a yellow dye and in traditional Chinese medicine, and the honey carries some of that association.

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