Varieties: four honeys that tell Mauritius

Floral source: Litchi chinensis, flowering August–September.
Colour: pale amber to light gold.
Texture: liquid at harvest, slow fine crystallisation.
Aromas: floral, lightly muscat, white-flower notes. Short finish, no bitterness.
Harvest window: September–October, right after the bloom ends.

Lychee is our most sought-after harvest. The flowering window is short — two to three weeks — and a prolonged rainy spell can spoil it. A good year yields a clean monofloral; a bad year yields a multifloral with lychee dominance.

Floral source: Eucalyptus tereticornis mainly, with other species depending on nearby plantings.
Colour: dark amber.
Texture: more viscous, medium-to-coarse crystallisation.
Aromas: woody, faint menthol, lingering bitter finish.
Harvest window: end of the dry season, usually August–October depending on species.

Eucalyptus is the most robust Mauritian honey. It is one of the three unifloral varieties explicitly studied in the reference scientific publication on Mauritian honeys³.

Floral source: Schinus terebinthifolius (faux-poivrier).
Colour: golden amber, sometimes with a faint rosé glint.
Texture: fluid, medium crystallisation.
Aromas: floral with a discreet spiced note, distantly reminiscent of pink peppercorn but far more subtle.
Harvest window: variable, usually after the hot-season flowering.

Wild pepper honey is the third unifloral identified in the Mauritian scientific literature³. It is also the most island-specific: few other terroirs worldwide produce a genuine Schinus honey at commercial scale.

Floral source: a seasonal blend of mango, avocado, lychee, eucalyptus, Schinus, tamarind, bougainvillea, coconut palm, filao, and coastal scrub.
Colour: varies with the season, light to dark amber.
Texture: varies.
Aromas: complex and shifting with the season. This is the honey that most faithfully tells a given year.
Harvest window: year-round, with pauses during the cyclone season and periods of strong wind.

Most Mauritian commercial honey is multifloral, often blended from several beekeepers before bottling. Our multiflorals are tracked by hive and by batch — we do not mix the harvest of a lagoon-side hive with that of a hive sitting near a sugarcane field.

The main scientific study of Mauritian honey³ analysed three raw unifloral honeys (lychee, eucalyptus, wild pepper) and three processed commercial honeys. Measured values:

• pH: 3.28 to 4.67.
• Moisture: 17.63% to 24.87%. Our internal target is below 18%.
• Reducing sugars: 42.95 to 60.31 g / 100 g.
• Density: 1.11 to 1.55 g/ml.
• Viscosity (at 20 °C): 1.85 to 26.24 Pa·s.

The study also measured the antibacterial and antifungal activity of the samples: the raw honeys showed inhibition zones comparable to a standard antibiotic (ampicillin) against several clinical strains, notably Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The study specifies that raw honeys were more effective than their processed counterparts.