Spruce honeydew honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

malt, dark caramel, damp forest, faint resin

Flavour

caramelised malt, a mineral saltiness, dried fruit, woody depth

Finish

Long, dry and warm.

Intensity

Pronounced

Sweetness

Restrained — bitterness or acidity competes with the sugar

Bitterness

Trace

Acidity

Low

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

Amber (85-114 mm Pfund)toDark amber (over 114 mm Pfund)

Dark brown, sometimes near-black, with a reddish rather than green cast — the distinction from fir honeydew that experienced buyers use.

On setting: Slow to set; where melezitose is present it can set very hard indeed.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny; Crystallised

Crystallisation

Slow — months before it starts to granulate

Low in glucose and rich in oligosaccharides that interfere with crystal formation. The exception is a melezitose-heavy season, when the honey sets solid in the comb before it can be spun — the cement honey that alpine beekeepers dread and occasionally have to soak out frame by frame.

Typical composition

Moisture

14–18% (typically 16%)

Fructose

30–38% (typically 34%)

Glucose

23–31% (typically 27%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.67–0.88 (typically 0.78)

pH

4.3–5.5 (typically 4.9)

Electrical conductivity

0.9–1.7 mS/cm (typically 1.2 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

No flower. The sugar begins as phloem sap in Norway spruce, Picea abies, and passes through aphids — chiefly Cinara and Physokermes species — before bees collect it from needles and bark.

Origins

Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and Romania, wherever spruce forest is extensive.

Origin pages

• The Black Forest
• Germany
• Poland
• Austria
• Switzerland
• Romania
• Slovenia
• Norway
• The Alps

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

Harvest

June to August (northern hemisphere)

Governed by the aphid population cycle rather than by flowering, and consequently unpredictable — a heavy honeydew year happens perhaps twice in five.

The bees

Colonies are moved into the forest at short notice when a flow appears. The husbandry problem is the standard honeydew one: high mineral and oligosaccharide content makes poor winter stores for bees confined for months, so the crop must be taken and replaced.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Raw, Pressed

German Waldhonig is one of the largest domestic honey categories in Europe and is overwhelmingly spruce rather than fir, which is worth knowing when a jar carries the generic forest name at a generic price.

What to do with it

The everyday breakfast honey across large parts of central Europe. Its restrained sweetness is why it can be eaten in quantity where a very sweet honey would cloy.

At the tableSpreadingWith cheeseBakingIn hot drinksGlazing and roasting

Pairings

• Alpine and mountain cheesesClassic

  Two products of the same forest and pasture, and a pairing as old as both.

• Dark rye and pumpernickelClassic

  Malt against malt, neither trying to be sweet.

• Strong coffee

  The honey's roasted depth extends the coffee rather than sweetening away from it.