How many types of Sugar are there?

Sugar is possible to find in various plants but main plants giving enough sugar for extraction are sugar beet and sugarcane. Especially developments on sugarcane extraction in 18th century made the sugar available for common people. After first period of sugar usage, high demand started sugarcane plantations in West Indies and Americas. It was cheaper and easy to use then honey and similar sweeteners. Problem on sugarcane was in plantation and growing period because it was very hard to grow it in America. With 19th century, Americans started to use sugar beet for sugar extraction and it was easier to cultivate it in cooler areas. How many types of Sugar are there?


Today there are three main types of sugar in the world. They are white sugar, brown sugar and liquid sugar. White sugar or granulated sugar is the most popular and most subtyped sugar type in the world. Some of the white sugar types are only available in professional usage. White sugar mainly varies in crystal size. Every sugar type has a different characteristic according to its crystal size.
Regular white sugar is most common sugar type in the world. There are two types of regular white sugar as “fine” and “extra fine”. It’s not possible to see a big price difference between these two types but it gives different tastes in bakery because of their process ways. Fruit sugar is using in mostly in dry mixes like pudding desserts. Also it has a usage area in powdered drinks. Fruit sugar’s crystal size is smaller than regular sugar. When fruit sugar is used balanced in dry mixes, it increases the quality.

Bakers Special Sugar is a professional type is white sugar using in professional food bakeries. Crystal size of Bakers Special Sugar is better than others. Most of the big coffee chains use Bakers Special Sugar for sugaring doughnuts. Also it’s possible to see the usage of it in commercial cake recipes.
Superfine or bar sugar type of white sugar has the finest crystal size ever. It has the best dissolving time in white sugars. It’s using sweetening iced teas and cakes. There’s also a sugar type in England called as “Caster” and it’s a type of superfine white sugar.
Powdered sugar is mostly for home usage. It has three different quality levels. Main usage area of powdered sugar is whipping cream and icings. Less quality powdered sugar types are using by industrial bakers.
Coarse sugar has a larger crystal size than standard white sugar. Coarse sugar is using in industrial production like fructose and glucose melting. Also it’s possible to see coarse sugar in liquors.

Sanding sugar is also large in crystal size and it’s a main product in confectionery industry. Also bakeries use sanding sugar in the top of baked foods. Because of sanding sugar’s big crystal size, it shines over the food and gives a sparkling appearance.
Brown Sugar is generally not processes sugar. Turbinado sugar is one of the most common brown sugar types in the world. It’s a partially processed type of raw sugar which washed of its surface molasses. Brown sugar is using in tea and beverages. It’s also possible to see brown sugar types like Evaporated Cane Juice, Barbados sugar, Free-flowing brown sugar and Demerara sugar. Brown sugar is started to be sold in England and today most of the consumption of brown sugar is making by England. Especially brown sugar types like Demerana are using in England for sweeting teas.
Liquid sugars are for industrial usage and they process for glucose and fructose sugars.