Hey there!

There’s a word wine connoisseurs love using: 

‘Terroir’. 

The idea that a bottle tastes of the place it came from… the soil, the slope, the weather that year.

But say the same thing about honey at a dinner party and the laymen will look at you funny.

“It’s all just sugary, sweet stuff, right?”

Well… after twenty years of tasting honeys straight from the harvest, I’ll tell you this with a straight face: 

Honey is ‘terroir in a jar’.

And it might show its origins more honestly than wine does.

The Two Mile Rule

Here’s the fact that makes it all click.

Bees forage within roughly 2 to 3 miles of their hive. That's their entire world.

Everything in the jar was gathered inside that circle across the season, condensed by several million buzzing workers.

A hive in a Spanish oak forest and a hive on a Greek mountainside have two completely different stories. The bees are simply writing each story from the landscape they live in.

Reading a Honey Like a Wine List

Taste with terroir in mind and the whole range turns into a map.

Let’s focus on Thomas’ range for second… our go-to keeper in Greece.

His family run hives all across the country, and they couldn’t be more different. 

Greek Mountain Oak comes from a forest above a lake in Rentina, at 900 metres. Nearly black, rich and treacly, with hints of cooked apples and plums.

Greek Forest Honey comes from the Agrafa mountains, where the bees work chestnut, fir, beech and oak together. Thick and full-bodied, with a tannic edge from the chestnut.

Greek Pine Honey comes from the forests of the Aegean island of Evia, north of Athens. It's deep, resinous, and has notes of cooked fig and warm spices.

Greek Thyme Honey has a mild and grassy foretaste, breaking into fruity notes like raspberries and red currants, then a clean finish… and it has an amazing colour.

Orange Blossom Honey stays light and golden with a mild citrus note, the gentlest of the lot.

Same insect working behind the scenes, but wildly different jars. The only variable is the place. Check out this map to get a clearer picture!

Why Commercial Honey Has No Accent

Now, here’s the sad part of the story.

Mass-market honey is blended.

Produce from many harvests and many countries are mixed, heated and filtered until everything distinctive is gone.

Blending makes it anonymous. The accent is gone, and with it, most of the reason honey is interesting. And sadly, you’ll find honey with no place to call home on most shelves across the UK.

A single-origin raw honey is the opposite:

- One beekeeper

- One landscape

- One season

Whatever the forest gave us that year is what you taste.

And the weather that season matters enormously. 

So does the beekeeper… his relationship with the bees, and the knowledge that tells him where they’ll do best. 

Even the temperament of a colony plays its part, which varies massively from hive to hive.

It’s why the same hives, in the same forest, never quite give you the same jar twice.

How to Taste Like You Mean It

You don’t need any equipment. Only a bit of attention to what’s in front of you.

But here’s an idea we like to share, inspired by the ultimate wine-lover experience.

Pick up two (or more) of our honeys, and do a blind taste test with friends or family.

Smell each one first. 

Then let some sit on your tongue and melt slowly, working it around your tongue, your gums, the roof of your mouth.

Keep your mouth closed and breathe out through your nose. That’s the bit most people skip… most of what you think you’re tasting is really smell, arriving from behind.

Notice the texture. 

The sweetness. 

The acidity. 

How the flavour changes as it goes, and how long it stays with you once it’s gone.

Then the fun part… guess the landscape.

You’ll be surprised how often the honey tells you. 

And when you’ve been doing it as long as me, you’ll know the differences between a honey from a Hungarian forest, a Spanish lavender meadow, or a Greek mountain.

It’s winetasting! Except with honey 😄

If you want a good starter pair, something dark against something light will give you a good spread in two spoonfuls.

Our best sellers are the easiest place to find one of each:

👉TheRawHoneyShop.com/collections/top-sellers-2

Give us a call on 01273 682109 and we'll happily pick a pair for your taste!

Tim