Tree lucerne honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

light florals, warm hay, faint nuts

Flavour

soft floral, light caramel, faint nuts

Finish

Short and clean.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — floral
• Warm and cooked — nutty

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 — this honey
5. Light amber50–85 mm — this honey
6. Amber85–114 mm
7. Dark amber114+ mm

Pale gold, clear and bright.

On setting: Sets to a fine pale cream.

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.

A moderate fine set, as with legume honeys generally.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–20% (typically 18%)

Fructose

36–41% (typically 38%)

Glucose

30–36% (typically 33%)

pH

3.6–4.4 (typically 4)

Electrical conductivity

0.1–0.5 mS/cm (typically 0.3 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

Chamaecytisus proliferus subsp. palmensis (often still sold as Chamaecytisus palmensis), tree lucerne or tagasaste, a Canary Island legume planted as fodder, shelter and nurse crop. Despite the name it is not lucerne (alfalfa).

Origins

New Zealand and Australia, from farm plantings, shelterbelts and naturalised stands.

Typical harvest

July to October (southern hemisphere)

A winter and early spring flow, which is precisely when it matters most.

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

The bees

Its winter flowering makes it disproportionately valuable — pollen and nectar in August build the colonies that will work the summer crops. Bumblebees, introduced to New Zealand in the 1880s to pollinate red clover, work it heavily too.

Usual processing

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

Its principal value is building colonies before the main season rather than filling supers. Farmers plant it for fodder and shelter, and the beekeeping benefit is incidental.

What to do with it

Rarely available as a named honey, because most of it is consumed by the colony as it builds.

At the tableSpreadingBaking

Pairings

• Toast

  Straightforward.

• Fresh cheeses

  Both mild.

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

Tagasaste was introduced from the Canary Islands to Australia and New Zealand in the nineteenth century as a drought-tolerant fodder shrub, and it has become one of the most useful early-season bee plants in both countries.