Tamarind honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

tamarind, date, warm caramel, dry wood

Flavour

sour date, caramel, brown sugar, tart finish

Finish

Long, with a genuine sour lift at the end.

Intensity

Moderate

Sweetness

Sweet

Bitterness

None

Acidity

Bright

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

Light amber (50-85 mm Pfund)toAmber (85-114 mm Pfund)

Warm amber with a reddish cast.

On setting: Slow to set; granulates coarsely when it does.

Texture

Runny; Thick but pourable

Crystallisation

Slow — months before it starts to granulate

A fructose-leaning ratio and warm storage temperatures together mean it usually reaches the table liquid.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–20% (typically 18%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.75–0.95 (typically 0.85)

pH

3.4–4.1 (typically 3.7)

Electrical conductivity

0.3–0.8 mS/cm (typically 0.5 mS/cm)

These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey. Lower pH than most tree honeys, which fits its noticeably tart character.

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

Where it comes from

Floral source

Tamarindus indica. Old village tamarinds rather than plantations supply most of it, so production follows settlement patterns.

Origins

Southern and central India above all, with production across the Sahel, Thailand and the Philippines.

Origin pages

• India
• Africa
• Asia
• Thailand
• Philippines
• The Sahel

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

Harvest

May to June (northern hemisphere)

The hot pre-monsoon weeks, when a flow is worth a great deal because there is nothing else.

The bees

Large old tamarinds are among the trees the giant honey bee most often builds its open combs on, so a single tree can supply both the forage and the nest site — and much tamarind honey is wild-harvested from those combs rather than kept in hives.

Usual processing

Coarsely strained, Pressed, Raw

A significant share is wild-harvested from Apis dorsata combs rather than kept, which means the quality varies with the harvester rather than with the beekeeper.

What to do with it

Its acidity makes it unusually useful in savoury cooking — it behaves like an ingredient in a marinade rather than merely sweetening one.

At the tableMarinadesSaucesDressingsGlazing and roastingIn hot drinksDesserts

Pairings

• Sweet and sour saucesClassic

  Tamarind pulp is the traditional souring agent in exactly these sauces, and the honey brings both halves at once.

• Grilled pork

  Acid tenderises, sugar browns, and the tart finish stops a glaze reading as dessert.

• Yoghurt

  Two acidities that meet rather than clash, with the honey's caramel filling the gap between them.

History and traditional use

Tamarind reached India from Africa early enough that its Indian identity was assumed for centuries — the Latin name means Indian date, which is wrong on both counts.

• Tamarind is central to South Indian and Southeast Asian cooking as a souring agent, and the honey is used in the same dishes.

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