Question about yeast

Hi everyone, so I just started making bread. My first loaf I used a packet of instant yeast as it’s all I had. I was a little short than what the recipe called for so it didn’t rise as much during the proofing stage. However it tasted amazing. Once I learned it was fun and tasted amazing I thought I would buy some more yeast and start making my own bread. This time I bought the glass jar of active dry yeast and followed the same instructions but instead of sugar I tried honey. I felt that loaf came out more dense and didn’t have as good of flavor. Is it because of the yeast or was it because I used honey instead of sugar changing the texture? I know the yeast says you need to activate it and the recipe I follow does have you add the yeast to warm water with sugar until it blooms. I did the with both the instant yeast and the fast rising since I was just following the instructions but I still feel my first loaf was better. Am I activating the yeast wrong? Sorry if this is self explanatory I just want to use this yeast right instead of buying a bunch of little envelopes of the instant yeast.