It is commonly known that honey is the product of the work of bees collecting pollen from flowers. But, as there is not just one type of flower, it also follows there is not one type of honey. The pollen from different plants gives different colouring texture and flavour to the resultant honey.
Simply looking at the colour of the honey reveals different shades from light amber to dark brown. Equally the taste is dictated by the source of the pollen.
The white to light amber honey’s are likely to come from blossom such as orange and acacia or from clover. The blossom lends a light flowery delicate flavour to the taste. The mid amber range indicates ground flowers such as lavender or wild flowers as their pollen source. The dark amber to brown honeys derive from herbs and low ground growing plants such as thyme and heather. Honey made from heather is consider particularly high in quality as it is flavoursome and neither too runny nor to hard.
A common honey, due to the abundance of the crop, is that made from oil seed rape, the bright yellow plants grown in fields primarily for their oil. However, the honey sets very hard and is so hard, as to be unusable to the bees in winter.
For small-scale beekeepers dictating the source of pollen is impossible and a blend of sources (like a blended whisky rather than a single malt) is the outcome. For commercial producers large areas growing only one type of crop can allow for a ‘mono’ honey, which usually commands a premium price.
