Varietal Honey
Lexikon
Varietal honey is honey that comes predominantly from a particular plant species and may therefore be sold with a botanical name such as rapeseed honey, acacia honey, or linden honey.
Varietal honey is honey that comes predominantly from a particular plant species and may therefore be sold with a botanical name such as rapeseed honey, acacia honey, or linden honey. For this, the Honey Ordinance requires that the honey filled into the jar comes predominantly from the named flowering plants and has the corresponding sensory, microscopic, and physico-chemical characteristics of that plant, so that a mere claim on the label is not enough.
In practice, whether a honey actually corresponds to a particular variety is checked by a combination of several methods. These include sensory testing of color, aroma, and taste, physico-chemical parameters such as electrical conductivity or the ratio of fructose to glucose, and above all microscopic pollen analysis. The guidelines for honey set their own minimum shares of certain pollen for many varieties, which can vary greatly depending on the plant, because some flower species produce a great deal or very little pollen in relation to the amount of nectar actually collected.
A common mistake in classifying varietal honey is to equate the share of pollen in the honey one to one with the share of the nectar source. Some plants, such as black locust or lavender, are clearly underrepresented in honey, so that even a comparatively low pollen share is enough for a genuine varietal classification, while other plants such as rapeseed are strongly overrepresented, and very high pollen shares are therefore expected in the honey without the share of the nectar source actually being higher.