Volatile compound

Definition

Almost everything a taster describes as the flavour of a honey is smell, carried by volatile compounds present at parts per million. Volatility is why they reach the nose and why they are so easily lost: warming a honey drives off the lightest and most floral compounds first, which is why a delicate honey stirred into a hot drink becomes generic sweetness.

Honey records that discuss this

• Clover honeyWarm, mild and rounded — sweet with a faint cinnamon-and-hay note underneath. The taste most English-speaking readers picture when they read the word honey.
• Linden honeyFresh and cooling — mint, balsam and lime blossom, with a clean herbal sharpness no other pale honey has.

Guide records that discuss this

• Why honeys taste and look so differentEvery honey is around 80% sugar. Everything that distinguishes one from another lives in the remaining fifth.
• 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.
• What makes a honey mildMild honeys are pale, low in minerals and dominated by sweetness. They are the right answer far more often than the honey world tends to admit.
• Honey aroma explainedMost of what people call the taste of a honey is smell, arriving from the back of the mouth. The compounds responsible are present at parts per million, and the two things that destroy them fastest are heat and time.

Question records that discuss this

• Is raw honey better than ordinary honey?Better for flavour, yes — raw honey keeps aroma compounds, enzymes and pollen that heating and fine filtration remove. Better for health, no: there is no good evidence that any of that produces a benefit. And 'raw' has no legal definition in most markets, so the word on a supermarket jar guarantees nothing.
• Does putting honey in hot tea ruin it?It damages the flavour, which is the real loss. Boiling water drives off aroma compounds and degrades enzymes, so an expensive honey in a boiling drink is largely wasted. It does not make honey toxic — that claim comes from Ayurvedic tradition and is not supported by evidence. Let a drink cool for a minute before stirring honey in.
• Does heating honey destroy it?Heating does not make honey harmful, and it does degrade it. Volatile aroma compounds are driven off, enzyme activity falls and hydroxymethylfurfural rises — so a heated honey is duller rather than dangerous. The claim that heated honey becomes toxic comes from Ayurvedic tradition and is not supported by evidence.