18/08/2021
FAQ: WHY DOES WILD HONEY VARY IN COLOR?
Have you ever wondered why honey comes in different colors? Maybe you’ve noticed the different light brown hues or dark amber colors. But what makes honey different shades? We’re here to explain.
“Not all nectars are created equal, thus not all honeys are created equal.” says Gene Robinson.
Like The Force, honey is a magical substance with a light side and a dark side that’s mysteriously made by tiny living things.
The color and flavor of honeys differ depending on the nectar source (the blossoms) visited by the honey bees. Honey gets its color from the pollen that a hive gathers to make it. Because plants blossom at different times of year and bees collect honey nearly year-round, a single hive can produce radically different colors of honey from season to season.
Honey color ranges from nearly colorless to dark brown, and its flavor varies from delectably mild to distinctively bold, depending on where the honey bees buzzed. As a general rule, light-colored honey is milder in taste and dark-colored honey is stronger.
No two honeys are alike, but they are all equally delectable. Color can also be affected by age as honey generally gets darker with age. Another factor in honey color is the crystallization process. Honey generally appears lighter when cyrstallized.
Marina Marchese describes the limit of what you can learn about honey from color alone: “Each varietal of honey generally falls within a color range, with slight variations…but color does not always correspond to what we expect to taste.”
Bees use whatever pollen they can find, so if lots of plants are in bloom, the honey that results will be a unique mix of different varietals with an equally unique color and flavor.
Most honey on store shelves isn’t particularly light or dark. It’s more of a golden-orange color, consistent from bottle to bottle and brand to brand which has to be heavily processed, blended and pasteurized to end up that way. All those “unusual” light and dark honeys are what honey really looks like. They’re more likely to be pure, raw and unfiltered local honey.
Even though their colors range from what beekeepers call “water white” to “motor-oil black,” raw and unfiltered varietal honeys are almost always cloudy and opaque, with their natural pollen––and flavor––still intact.
Every bottle of raw and unfiltered local honey––light or dark––has its own origin story, one that started a long time ago in a hive far, far away.
source: www.honey.com
