Blending

Definition

Standard and legal commercial practice. Blending produces a jar that tastes the same year-round from crops that vary enormously, which is a genuine service to buyers who want consistency. What it removes is character: a blend is the average of its components. EU rules require the countries of origin to be declared.

Where the word gets used loosely

Blend of EU and non-EU honeys is frequently read as an admission of something. It is a legal disclosure of ordinary practice. The genuine concern with blends is traceability rather than quality.

Honey records that discuss this

• Tupelo honeyButtery and clean with a pear-and-green-apple lift, and a long soft finish that never turns cloying.
• Basswood honeyIntensely aromatic with a mentholated, faintly medicinal lift over a clean sweetness — one of the most distinctive American honeys and among the most divisive.
• Dzidzilché honeyDelicate and clean with a distinct light floral perfume and a faint citrus lift — refined in a way that most tropical honeys are not.
• Heather honeyStrong, smoky and slightly bitter, with a lingering woodfire-and-toffee character. One of the most complex honeys produced anywhere.
• Sea buckthorn honeySharp and fruity where berry juice has been added, and an ordinary golden coastal honey where it has not. The two are quite different products under one name.
• Pagoda tree honeyLight, clean and gently floral with a faint green edge — an unassertive honey produced in very large quantities.
• Prairie honeyClean, mild and creamy, with a light floral sweetness. The reference point for what a great many people think honey tastes like.

Guide records that discuss this

• What makes a honey taste floralFloral character comes from volatile aroma compounds that survive the journey from flower to jar. Very few do, which is why genuinely perfumed honeys are a small minority.
• How plants decide honey flavourNearly everything that distinguishes one honey from another arrives in the nectar. The bee contributes enzymes and evaporation; the plant contributes everything you taste.
• Floral honeys: the perfumed end of the catalogueA shortlist of the honeys that genuinely smell of flowers, which is a much smaller group than the marketing suggests.
• Honey traceability explainedMost honey in a supermarket has been blended from many countries, and until recently a label could say so without naming any of them. Traceability is why honey fraud is profitable, and improving it does more than any laboratory test.