What makes honey dark

Honey also gets darker as it gets older - some oxidation and aging occurs. Unfortunately, many people prefer white bread over whole wheat, pumpernickel, and other excellent breads, and prefer light colored honey over dark.

No rational basis for that preference, but it is fairly widespread. Tulip poplar, sumac and catalpa all make dark and very delicious honey - I love the darker honey the best. Linda T in Atlanta. Brian D. Alfalfa is also dark, often nearly black like buckwheat but different taste.

Life is a school. What have you learned? Hey, From what I understand, honey is a lot like bread. Whitest is the highest grade, but the darker the better health wise.

For example, the average measurement of eucalyptus honey is 58 mm, which makes it a light amber honey. The minerals present in the viscous syrup come from the composition of the soil and other environmental factors that affected the nectar source. Minerals present in honey create a difference in the final presentation of the product. Pale honeys have about a 0. Darker honey can have a content of around 0. Mineral levels and antioxidant properties have a positive correlation.

This means that darker honey — those with more minerals — are more antioxidant than lighter-colored honey. Some honeys have antioxidant levels that rival tomatoes and sweet corn. A jar of dark honey is in no way an indication that the honey is bad.

From the source to the storage, the honey hue is determined at each stage of the process of honey. You may be getting darker honey because of:. The color of the pollen grains can make a big difference in the tone of the end product.

As bees tend to the hive, they bring pollen grains on their legs that inevitably mix with uncapped honey. Some pollen, like that of a lily, with its dark red grains, has a distinctive color capable of staining. The honey produced from a lily flower reflects the grain.

Due to seasonal variations in blooming, bees from the same hive and foraging in the same area can produce honey of different coloration. If one floral species blooms at the beginning of the honey flow and another at the end of the season, the same bees will produce honey of different color and flavor. The amino acids and main sugars in honey — fructose and glucose — caramelize in the presence of heat.

In some cases, it might appear to be golden yellow, but it can have that gooey look and consistency such as manuka. And while rare, there can even be white honey. It really depends on the type of nectar that the bees used to produce light honey. As mentioned, the color and the type of honey are dependent on the flower or plant where the nectar was collected by the bees.

This is what contributes to the major differences between honey. Of course, the color of the honey is also dictated by the nectar of the flower that the bees used to produce it. Honey that is lighter in appearance and has that light-amber color can come from plants or flowers such as black locust trees, California sage, clover, linden tree blossoms, blueberry flowers, Canadian flowering plants, manuka trees, and other similar plants that tend to have light-colored nectar.

Because of how varied the nectar sources of most bees are, it can be pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly what kind of plant or flower produces light honey. However, the ones we mentioned above are merely examples of the different plants that can yield honey that is lighter in terms of its appearance and coloration.

This is where people generally base their honey preferences, as the taste of honey can actually vary depending on where the honey comes from and on the actual color of the honey. There are even generalizations regarding which color of honey has a specific type of taste. Generally speaking, lighter honey tends to have a lighter and milder taste. Think of it as the counterpart of white sugar in the sense that it is sweet, but the sweetness tends to have a softer and lighter profile.

For example, honey that comes from basswood tends to have a pretty strong taste even though it does come with a light appearance. As such, the notion that light honey has a milder and softer sweetness is merely a general rule and is not absolute. Of course, different types of honey are used for different purposes because they differ in flavor profile and color, which can affect the overall taste of the dish or drink you may want to use the honey for.

In that regard, light honey is often used for drinks and for baking because it comes with a sweetness that will not overpower what you are preparing. For example, it generally goes well with coffee or tea if you want to use it for drinks.

Light honey also goes well with your early morning cereal because it has a style of sweetness that blends well with milk. On the other hand, while we may have discussed the fact that people tend to think of the golden-colored nectar when they think of honey, there are also darker varieties that may not be as popular as the lighter type of honey among Americans.

Nevertheless, this dark honey is actually widely in use in a collection of European countries. Similar to light honey, dark honey can vary in terms of its overall appearance, but the reason why it is dark tends to due to the fact that it came from specific flowering plants. In that regard, let us get to know more about dark honey. There are some amber-like dark honey, but they are in the darker shade of amber instead of the usual lightly colored amber that you often see in light honey.

As such, it is widely believed that dark honey has more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, which all contribute to its dark color. In fact, the buckwheat honey variant actually comes with a darker molasses-like color that may look like burnt sugar. However, it has been proven that this very dark honey has 20 times more antioxidants than some of the lighter honey variants.

Similar to light honey, the reason why dark honey tends to have a darker color can be attributed to the fact that it comes from certain types of nectar from specific plants and flowers that allow it to have a darker color due to how there are more components inside the nectar. That said, dark honey can be made from all sorts of nectar coming from plants such as New York and Ohio buckwheat flowers, chestnut tree flowers, coffee, cotton, maple tree, and tulip poplar.

However, there are many more flowering plants where dark honey can come from, and they are usually found in places in Europe and in certain regions in the United States. Again, it can be quite difficult to completely pinpoint which plants produce dark honey, but there are some plants that are specifically used in select apiaries so that the beekeepers can produce darker variants of the honey.

As such, this is why buckwheat tends to be quite popular when it comes to producing dark honey. And there are also plenty of different European countries that use native flowering plants to produce dark honey, which is quite popular in Europe. However, keep in mind that there are some dark kinds of honey that are only dark because of how the sugars end up burning and producing that dark color.