Sycamore honeydew honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

molasses, damp wood, malt

Flavour

malt, caramel, mineral, faint smoke

Finish

Medium, malty and savoury.

Flavour character

• Warm and cooked — malty, molasses and treacle
• Woody and resinous — woody
• Earthy and mineral — mineral and saline

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
6. Amber85–114 mm — this honey
7. Dark amber114+ mm — this honey

Dark amber to brown, occasionally with a greenish cast.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny; Soft set

Crystallisation

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

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

Slower than a nectar honey of comparable colour, though faster than the conifer honeydews — broadleaf honeydews contain rather less of the oligosaccharides that suppress crystallisation.

Typical composition

Moisture

15–19% (typically 17%)

Fructose

31–38% (typically 34%)

Glucose

25–32% (typically 28%)

pH

4.1–5.2 (typically 4.6)

Electrical conductivity

0.8–1.5 mS/cm (typically 1.1 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

Honeydew excreted by aphids feeding on Acer pseudoplatanus and other maples. The tree's own flowers do yield nectar early in spring, but the honeydew is the larger and later resource.

Origins

Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and central Europe, wherever sycamore is abundant.

Origin pages

• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• Germany

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

Typical harvest

June to September (northern hemisphere)

The aphid season, later and longer than the tree's own brief spring flowering.

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

The bees

Honey bees collect the honeydew from leaf surfaces. Wasps and ants compete for the same resource, and in a heavy aphid year a sycamore avenue is loud with all three.

Usual processing

Raw, Coarsely strained, Spun (centrifugally extracted)

Yield tracks aphid populations, which vary sharply between years and are affected by their own predators. Beekeepers generally remove honeydew before winter, since colonies overwintering on it are prone to dysentery.

What to do with it

Its low sweetness suits savoury use. It is good in a marinade and on a strong cheese, and undistinguished on toast.

At the tableWith cheeseBakingGlazing and roastingMarinades

Pairings

• Aged hard cheeses

  Mineral against salt.

• Dark bread

  Malt and malt.

• Roast root vegetables

  A savoury honey belongs in savoury cooking.

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

Sycamore was introduced to Britain in the sixteenth century and is now among its most abundant trees, which has made a honeydew resource out of a tree that was not originally there.