How to Classify Honey

Honey is sweet natural food that is easy to absorb. It is sometimes called the milk for the elderly because the monosaccharide contained in honey such as dextrose and laevulose does not need the process of digestion. Therefore, it is a healthy product which is especially suitable for women, children and the elderly. However, there is a variety of honey on the market. How can we distinguish the various types?

The first method to classify honey is judging the sources. As we know, bees collect honey from nectar. But when there is not enough nectar, they would extract it manna or honey dew. So we divide honey into natural honey and manna honey. Natural honey is subdivided into single flora honey and mixed flora honey. More specially, that extracted from a single kind of nectar is called single flora honey, while that from various kinds of nectar is mixed flora honey. Most honey on the market belongs to the former kind, including litchi honey, bass honey and Chinese milk vetch honey and so on. Compared with single flora honey, mixed flora honey is inferior in smell, taste and nutrition.

Honey can also be classified into liquid honey and crystal honey according to its different physical states. Usually honey exists in the form of liquid. But when the temperature is rather low or it has been kept for quite a long time, honey would turn into crystals. These crystals vary from each other in size.

Some people distinguish different kinds of honey by its color. As honey is collected from different flowers, its color varies greatly. Single flora honey as well as mix flora honey has some colors. Color is an important criterion for us to classify honey and judge its quality. Usually, honey of shallow colors is of high quality and smells good. And white honey is better than amber honey.

In addition, it is reasonable to distinguish honey by the production methods. Some honey is pressed out of honeycombs by machines and goes through filtrations, while some other honey is brewed together with combs. The latter is better than the former because it is more natural and more nutritious. Baume degrees are used to judge their qualities. When the content of dextrose and laevulose is more than 60% and the content of cane sugar is less than 5%, the honey is superior. The honey collected from farmers is not always so ideal that it needs further processing. Sometimes water is added to honey. In fact, the more water exists, the worse honey is. If the content of water is too much, honey would be heated and condensed. These two types of processed honey are without doubt less nutritious. Original honey is better and healthier, but it is not that economical.