How to distinguish real honey

True honey can be identified by observing its color, smelling its aroma, tasting its taste, testing its viscosity, and examining its crystalline state. The quality of honey is mainly influenced by factors such as the source plant, brewing process, and storage conditions.

1. Observing color

Pure honey has a color ranging from water white to dark brown depending on the honey source, but overall it is transparent and free of impurities. Single flower honey has a uniform color, such as water white honey from locust flowers and amber honey from jujube flowers. Poor quality honey may have added pigments, resulting in overly bright or cloudy colors, and often sediment at the bottom.

2. Smell

Natural honey has a fragrant aroma corresponding to the honey source plant, such as lychee honey with fruity aroma and vitex honey with medicinal herb aroma. Adulterated honey may emit syrup, sour or chemical essence smell, and the aroma of honey heated at high temperature will be significantly weakened.

3. Taste

True honey has a sweet and delicate taste, with a slight spicy sensation in the throat and a long-lasting aftertaste with floral fragrance. Fake honey has a simple and short-lived sweetness, which may be accompanied by the bitterness of saccharin or the astringency of alum. Some honey varieties, such as Huanglian honey, retain the slight bitterness characteristics of the plant itself.

4. Test viscosity

Dip chopsticks in honey and draw it. High quality honey can pull out slender and flexible threads, which will bounce back into beads after breaking off. Honey mixed with water has a thin texture and is prone to breakage. Honey mixed with syrup has a coarse, short, and sticky texture. Under low temperature conditions, pure honey will thicken but not change its uniformity.

5. Checking the crystallization Status

Most pure honey will naturally crystallize below 14 ℃, with soft and delicate crystalline particles that are easy to twist. The fake honey crystals mixed with maltose are hard, while the white sugar honey crystals are coarse sand like. Be cautious if easily crystallized honey species such as oak honey and rapeseed honey do not crystallize for a long time.

It is recommended to choose regular channel products for daily honey purchases, check whether the ingredient list indicates a single flower species, and avoid purchasing honey that claims to cure diseases. When storing, it should be placed in a cool and dark place. Crystallization is a normal phenomenon and can be restored by heating in a bottle with warm water. The intake of diabetes patients, infants under one year old and other special groups should be controlled, and the allergic reaction should be stopped immediately. High quality honey is not only a natural sweetener, but also contains various active enzymes and minerals. Reasonable consumption is beneficial for health.