Antonio - Heather Honey 970g (Raw, Organic, Runny)

Prize Winner in the Great Taste Awards 2017

According to the judges: "Heavily aromatic. Treacly, almost fudgy in texture. There's an almost molasses richness and tinge of bitterness. Some deep meadowy flavours - more herbaceous than fruity, we feel. It has length and persistence." and "Deep brown, glossy, thick honey. The honey has a caramel aroma, and the dried fruit flavour comes through well and is rich and balanced. We would see this working well for a number of purposes - fruit, yoghurt or on toast."

This is an amazingly deep tasting shrub honey; it has a depth of flavour with a pronounced bitterness similar to dark chocolate or black tea. It comes from the bees feeding on the low lying heather shrubs often on mountainous terrain. Heather is a favourite plant of bees. Despite not being a tree, heather honey has properties of a tree honey, namely its potent taste and dark colour. If you have not had heather honey previously, we would recommend trying a 50g jar before purchasing a full-size jar as the flavour can be quite intense.

Why Raw Honey is different to Processed Honey - Raw honey generally means the honey has not been processed, it has come from the hive to the jar with minimal interference. Most supermarket honey is highly processed to make it look more attractive, it has been drained of pollen, often heated and blended. Raw honey tends to vary from batch to batch, this is because it is not processed in a factory, filtered or heated to look homogeneous, it changes with the season and climate and what the bees feed on, we will update this fact sheet according to which batch we currently have in.

Colour - This particular honey is brown in colour, slightly red in the light.

Runny State - Heather honey tends not to stay runny for long due to a high glucose content.

Set State - Heather honey develops small to medium crystals fairly quickly after harvesting, it is quite rare to get it completely runny.

Honey Facts - This particular type of heather honey comes from the plants erica vagans and erica cinerea. Heather has 2 main genus, calluna also known as ling and erica or ericaceae, both are noted for being some of the best honey varieties you can obtain.

Origin - This variety of heather honey comes from the northern mountain ranges of Madrid in Spain known as Sierra De Guadarrama.

Plant / Tree The heather shrub also known as brezo in Spanish is a small mountain hugging evergreen which produces many flowers and loves acidic soils.

Common Uses Heather honey is particularly good to use in different recipes, such as: Greek yoghurt, ice creams, glazes for meats and to add a unique zing and depth to a dish.

Beekeeper - This heather honey comes from Antonio, a 4^th generation beekeeper who takes pride in producing honey in a traditional way, without adding or taking away anything. Antonios hives are based in the mountain ranges of north of Madrid, the land he has his hives on has been certified as organic by the Committee of Organic Agriculture in Madrid.

Please know that raw honey does crystalise and this is a natural process that occurs mainly due to the natural glucose in raw honey.