Soybean honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

clean sugar, faint green bean, beeswax

Flavour

clean sugar, light vanilla, faint green note

Finish

Short and clean.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — floral
• Green and herbal — vegetal
• Warm and cooked — buttery

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

1. Water white0–8 mm — this honey
2. Extra white8–17 mm — this honey
3. White17–34 mm — this honey
4. Extra light amber34–50 mm
5. Light amber50–85 mm
6. Amber85–114 mm
7. Dark amber114+ mm

Very pale, sometimes almost colourless.

On setting: Sets to a fine white grain.

Texture

Runny; Soft set; Creamed

Crystallisation

Moderate, step 3 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Moderate — granulates over a few months; sets with a fine crystal.

Sets over a few months to an even fine grain.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–19% (typically 17.5%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.9–1.1 (typically 1)

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 consistent with its pallor. Much of the American crop is blended rather than analysed as a monofloral.

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

Where it comes from

Floral source

Glycine max. The flowers are small, tucked into the leaf axils and easy to walk past, and whether they yield depends on humidity, variety and night temperature in ways that are still not well understood.

Origins

The American Midwest and Mississippi valley above all, with production in Brazil and Argentina.

Origin pages

• North America
• South America
• United States
• Argentina

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

Typical harvest

July to August (northern hemisphere)

Midsummer, and it coincides with the point at which many American landscapes have finished their clover.

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

The bees

Several studies find modest yield increases from insect visitation despite the crop's self-fertility, which makes soybean one of the clearer cases of a crop that benefits from bees without depending on them.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Filtered, Creamed (seeded and controlled-set)

Rarely marketed under its own name. Most soybean honey goes into blends, which is a reasonable fate for a honey whose defining quality is that it tastes of very little.

What to do with it

A blending and general-purpose honey rather than a tasting one. Where a recipe wants sweetness and no opinion, this is the kind of honey it means.

At the tableSpreadingBakingIn hot drinksDesserts

Pairings

• Delicate tea

  Mild enough not to bury a green or white tea, which is a genuine use for a neutral honey.

• Plain yoghurt

  Lets the yoghurt's acidity lead, with the honey supplying sweetness and nothing else.

• Buttered toast

  The everyday use, and it sets soft enough to spread cleanly.

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

Soybean's expansion across the American Midwest from the mid-twentieth century changed what American honey is made of, in the same way oilseed rape changed European honey a few decades later.