Brown sugar is a product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of . It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar with some residual molasses content or produced by the addition of molasses to refined .

Brown sugar contains from 3.5% molasses (light brown sugar) to 6.5% (dark brown sugar). The product is naturally moist from the nature of the molasses and is often labelled as "soft." The product mayundergo processing to give a product that flows better for industrialhandling. The addition of dyes and/or other chemicals may be permittedin some areas or for industrial products.

Particle size is variable but generally less than granulated whitesugar. Products for industrial use (e.g. the industrial production ofcakes) may be based on which has crystals of approximately 0.35 mm.

Brown sugar has a slightly lower caloric value by weight than whitesugar due to the presence of water. One hundred grams of brown sugarcontains 373 calories, as opposed to 396 calories in white sugar.However, brown sugar packs more densely than white sugar due to thesmaller crystal size and may have more calories when measured byvolume. One tablespoon of brown sugar has 48 calories against 45calories for white sugar