What Does “Single-Origin” Honey Mean?

What Does "Single-Origin" Honey Mean?

As we tasted more honey, we found ourselves asking the same question more often:

Where did this honey come from?

Sometimes the answer is easy to find. 

For example, the jar tells us the country, the region, or even the name of the flower.

Other times, there isn't much information at all.

We started to realise that knowing where honey comes from can change the way we think about what is inside the jar.

What does single-origin mean?

Put simply, single-origin honey comes from a defined geographical area.

But there is something worth knowing here.

Single-origin does not necessarily mean single-flower.

A hive in one particular area may have access to many different flowers. The honey can still be from one region even though the bees have visited more than one type of flower.

You may also see the term monofloral or single-floral. That is different. It refers to honey associated predominantly with a particular floral source.

So there are really two different questions:

Where did the honey come from?
What flowers did the bees visit?

Why does the place matter? 

This is where we started to become more interested in provenance.

Bees forage within the landscape around their hives. What is flowering, when it flowers and what the season brings all influence what the bees collect.

A Jarrah forest in Western Australia is a very different environment from the landscapes where Manuka grows.

And that difference can end up in the jar.

Where the bees forage becomes part of the story of the honey.

This is one reason we enjoy exploring honeys from different places. A honey doesn't have to tell us everything about its origins, but knowing where it came from gives us somewhere to start.

A few honeys, a few very different places

Take Jarrah honey.

Our Jarrah comes from the ancient Jarrah forests of Western Australia, where the bees forage among Jarrah trees. It is a very particular landscape, and the honey has a character of its own.

Then there is Manuka from New Zealand.

Different landscape. Different flowering plants. Different honey.

We also carry Red Bell honey from Western Australia, collected from Red Bell flowers in specific parts of the state. Again, the name gives us a clue about where the honey begins.

And that is what we like about these honeys.

They aren't simply different products on a shelf.

They begin in different places.

What about the flower?

This is where the language can get confusing.

A honey can be associated with a particular flower without meaning that the bees visited only that flower.

Bees forage where flowers are available. So when we talk about a floral source, we're generally talking about the predominant source that gives the honey its particular character.

That is why we find names like Jarrah and Manuka so interesting.

They tell us something about the journey before the honey reached the jar.

Does single-origin mean better?

Not necessarily.

We don't think one place makes a honey better than another.

A Jarrah honey is not trying to be a Manuka, and a Manuka doesn't need to taste like a Jarrah.

They are different because they come from different places, flowers and conditions.

That's really what interests us.

Rather than asking which honey is "the best", we prefer asking:

What makes this honey what it is?

So what should we look for?

When we pick up a jar, we like knowing a little more than simply the word "honey".

Where was it harvested?

What flowers were the bees visiting?

What region did it come from?

Who looked after the hives?

The more we know, the easier it is to connect the honey back to its origins.

And perhaps that's the most interesting thing about provenance.

It gives us a reason to look beyond the jar.

To the forest. The flowers. The bees. And the people who care for them.