forage source comes up here constantly but always as a taste and colour thing. what i cant work out is whether which rhododendron the bees worked goes past that.
Not just a flavour and colour question. which species was dominant that season is one of the variables behind the variability. you can't reliably read that off the taste though.
timely this. had two jars a few months apart, same seller, label identical, and the second one was darker and tasted sharper, more of that herbal edge. i assumed different flowers that season, reading the above im not sure the label was about flowers at all.
Same label, two different jars. and one flower name was never going to cover a whole hillside anyway.
in a lot of the harvesting areas the forage isn't a single species to begin with. it's whatever is flowering on that cliff in that season, and the bees arent being selective on anyone's behalf.
so asking which flower as if there is one answer flattens something genuinely mixed, and the mix moves year to year. that part is real, but it isn't visible from outside the jar.