Hey there!

Every honey harvest season, some things stay the same:

Same forest. 

Same beehive. 

Same beekeeper. 

But despite that, it’s a slightly different honey.

It’s part of this job I never tire of explaining… and this week there’s a delivery sitting in our warehouse that proves it better than anything I could write.

The new Greek harvest has arrived. Let me tell you what changed.

The Delivery From Thomas Has Landed

Thomas’s Mountain Oak and his Red Fir have been out of stock for a while. 

Long enough for some people to ask (more than once) when they were coming back.

Well… they’re back. 

But this year’s been a disaster for Greek honeydew honeys. As I understand it, the rain washed the honeydew off the trees, and then a very hot summer didn’t help.

Five other beekeepers we normally count on lost their harvest, including Kostas on Mount Kissavos, who makes a very potent forest honey.

Thomas pushed through. He’s one of the few beekeepers who got any oak honey at all. He has less than usual, and we’ll probably run out… but what he did get is exceptionally bioactive.

So pick up Thomas’ Mountain Oak and Red Fir before someone else snatches it!

This harvest, fresh from central Greece (like every dark honey we take) has been to the lab for testing, and the results are looking very strong this year.

But here’s the main thing worth knowing before you order… this year’s Mountain Oak does NOT taste like last year’s Mountain Oak.

 

Why a Raw Honey Changes From One Year to the Next

Commercialised honey is blended in a way so it tastes the same forever. 

Pour enough batches together, warm them through, and you get a product with no memory of the year it was made in.

A single-origin raw honey doesn’t have this safety net. It carries the year it came from.

The weather does a lot of it. A dry spring, a late frost, a warm autumn… the trees respond, the sap runs differently, and the bees bring back something with a different character.

The beekeeper does a lot of it too. Where Thomas places his hives, how he reads the colony, when he decides to harvest. (People assume the place is the only variable. It isn’t. The weather, the beekeeper’s judgement, and the temperament of the bees themselves all move the flavour.)

So every jar is a snapshot of what’s happened since the last harvest.

 

What This Year’s Mountain Oak Tastes Like

Mountain Oak comes from a forest on a mountain near a lake in Rentina, up above 900 metres. It’s a honeydew honey, which means the bees gather sap and resin from the oaks rather than nectar from flowers.

It’s still very dark. Nearly black, with a hint of purple in the light. And thick enough to stand a spoon upright.

The flavour is where the year shows. This one is smooth and fruit-led… stewed plums and cooked dark fruit, opening into a gentle caramel sweetness, with a mild woody note right at the end.

Regulars will notice it’s softer than the last harvest. Less tannic, less intense. If you’ve found Mountain Oak a touch strong in the past, this is the year to try it again.

On porridge, on toast, stirred through yoghurt, drizzled over a fruitcake. It suits all of them.

The Red Fir, and the Morning I Won’t Forget

The Red Fir comes from somewhere else entirely, and I tell this story to anyone who’ll sit still for it.

Mount Kaliakouda. 1,500 metres up, in central Greece.

Thomas collected me from my hotel early, in a sweaty pickup truck with dodgy A/C. We crossed from the city into gorges and open plains and started climbing… through small villages with old men out front drinking coffee, then hairpin after hairpin swirling up the mountains… then nothing at all but forest.

After an hour we drove up through the clouds.

At the top, the road margins were thick with wildflowers growing on their own, nowhere near any commercial farming or pesticides. I could hear the bees working the fir trees over the sound of the cranky engine.

While I took photographs, Thomas checked the colonies and fixed up the fence keeping bears out. (Bears are very fond of his Red Fir honey… completely understandable 😂)

Then I had a chunk of the comb. Best honeycomb I’ve ever eaten, in a place I’d happily have stayed.

The honey itself is dark reddish brown, smooth and rich, with a mild fruity tang and a long, mellow finish. It’s a fir honeydew, so it stays runny far longer than most raw honeys.

What the Lab Said

The dark honeys, like Thomas’s Mountain Oak, always go off for a Total Activity test, which measures their antibacterial potency.

The Mountain Oak came back at 25+. (The raw result was 29.5, which puts it inside the 25+ band printed on the label, and is a high number by any measure.)

The Red Fir came back at a very respectable 20+.

One thing worth knowing: 

Activity is at its highest the day it’s tested, and it fades with light and heat. Keep the jar somewhere cool and dark and it holds on to a lot more of it.

If You’d Like a Hand Choosing…

If you’ve been waiting on one of these, they’re on the site now (though I wouldn’t wait too long on the Mountain Oak). And if you’re torn between the two, give us a call… the number reaches real people who taste these honeys for a living.

I’d send a first-timer to the Mountain Oak this year. It’s the friendliest version of it we’ve had.

By the way: Thomas, his father Giorgios and his sister Elena make the whole Greek range between them. Their honeys all live on one page.

👉 Thomas’ Raw Honey

And if you ever have any honey-related questions, give us a call on 01273 682109.

Tim