Why your honey doesn't always taste the same

If you've ever bought two jars of honey and wondered why one tastes completely different to the other, you're not imagining it.

Honey isn't supposed to taste the same.

In fact, one of the simplest ways to understand honey is to stop thinking of it like a standard product and start thinking about it like wine.

The flavour comes from where the bees have been. Bees don't make honey from a recipe. They collect nectar from the flowers available to them, take it back to the hive, and turn it into honey.

So when the flowers change, the honey changes too.

And this is where things get rather interesting.

Spring honey - Early in the year, bees are often working on trees, hedgerows, gardens and spring flowers. Spring honey can be lighter and more delicate, with a gentle floral flavour. It tends to be the sort of honey that disappears rather quickly from a piece of toast.

Summer honey - As the countryside changes, so does the bees' menu. Summer brings a huge variety of flowering plants, which can create a more varied and rounded honey. This is why “summer honey” isn't necessarily one exact flavour. It depends on what was flowering and where the bees were working.

Heather honey - Then comes the moors. Heather honey is something altogether different. The bees are working across the purple heather when it flowers, producing a darker, richer honey with a distinctive, slightly earthy character.

And because the heather season is relatively short, it becomes a little snapshot of that particular time and place.

That is what makes honey so interesting.

The label might simply say honey, but inside the jar is a record of a season. So how should you taste honey?

Next time you open a new jar, don't immediately stir it into a cup of tea. Try a little on its own. Take a small spoonful and let it sit on your tongue for a moment.

Is it floral? Fruity? Rich? Caramel-like? Does it have a slightly earthy finish?

Then try it with something neutral, like warm toast.

You'll probably notice things you didn't pick up on the first taste. And if you have two different honeys in the cupboard, try them side by side.

That's when you really start to notice the difference.

There isn't necessarily a “better” honey.

There are simply different honeys, from different flowers, different seasons and different landscapes. And that is perhaps what makes proper honey worth paying attention to. It isn't manufactured to taste identical from one jar to the next.

It follows the seasons.

So next time you reach for the honey, take a second to wonder where the bees have been. You might find you're not just tasting honey.

You're tasting a little bit of the Yorkshire countryside.