So what is it about honey – what makes one honey different from the next? Well, lots of things. Honey is one of nature’s most magnificent gifts. In its purest form is both sweetness and medicine. Sadly, so many of the large-scale commercial practices around honey mean that the natural properties of some of the honey on the supermarket shelf have either been destroyed by heating or radiation or in some cases mixed with sugary syrupy nonsense.
So how do you know? Well, the good stuff, the golden good stuff it isn’t always the same. Bees forage on different flowers throughout the year. What are some of the things you can look out for when buying pure honey?
A good beekeeper’s honey will taste and look different from time to time. A jar of honey harvested from hives that were left to pollinate Aloes will not be the same colour as a jar that was foraging on wild fynbos. Colour variations from dark to light are a great indicator that the bees have been in beautiful, safe, abundant environments.
Honey granulates and crystalizes. That runny honey you bought at the market ages ago, that changed, turned opaque in patches and solidified? Great! That means it wasn’t cooked. Honey is often heated (Choice Grade) to keep it liquid and pouring out of those plastic squeezy bottles for longer but the healing properties in honey are destroyed by over-heating it. We warm our honey gently up to body temperature using an old-fashioned warming, light bulb. That’s it. So, its raw and unfiltered.
Unfiltered means we simply strain it through a cloth so it’s possible you may find some traces of waxy residue on the top of the jar, perhaps even some propolis. Both of which are packed with goodness.
It’s sensitive to temperature but not to time. It never goes off and honey that was found in Egyptian tombs was still edible. But mostly our experience is that a jar Honeywood Honey gets eaten pretty fast.
Creamed honey is connoisseur level stuff. This is when we seed raw honey into a batch runny honey and blend it gently reducing the size of the crystals until it turns into a soft, smooth on the tongue but firm sweet treat.
And last but not least, taste. Honey should come in a multitude of flavours. It’s all sweet for sure but there should be both subtle and wild differences in batches and harvests. In fact, they should always differ. Canola honey is by far the sweetest and one of the palest and hives left to work on onions, well let’s just say that makes for a great marinade ingredient. Depending on the time of the year our bees work on flowering Eucalyptus, wild Fynbos or indigenous trees that bloom on our farm. Which is better? Well, that’s for you to decide - are you a honey in your tea person or a honey on your toast for breakfast or a just eat it by the spoon from the jar kind of person? We have something for every taste and preference.
Jars, tubs or buckets? Yup we sell them all. Our glass jars make great gifts and are available online here.
Wildsprout - Kenilworth & Sea Point
Organic Living – Constantia Village
The Emporium - Noordehoek
Giovannis Deli - Sea Point
Country Deli - Swellendam
Wellness Warehouses
Wild oats Market – Sedgefield
Our family sized tubs are convenient and economical but you will need to buy direct.
To purchase wholesale and in bulk you’ll need to email us [email protected]
