Portuguese Heritage Raw Honeys

Most of you know that honey kept properly can last almost indefinitely, in fact for hundreds of years, but owing to ignorant labelling laws,  our sunflower honey has come to the end of its "official best before date" 2022, so we are reducing the price to clear to £6.49 from £9.49. Orders of 24 jars or more will also receive 10% off in addition. No other discounts can be used in conjunction with this offer. WE HAVE JUST MOVED 300 JARS OF THIS SAME BATCH FROM OUR PORTUGAL WAREHOUSE TO THE UK. SO IT IS BACK IN STOCK HOWEVER WITH A DUTCH LABEL. This honey is perfectly fit for consumption and in fact is a great vintage of one of the best years we've ever had for sunflower honey.

 

Raw Sunflower honey locally known as "Girassol" is a lovely pollen rich, taste of pure summer sunshine. Sunflower honey crystallizes very quickly and can only be bottled in the first weeks after harvesting. It sets to a rich creamy, nutty  taste and texture, and has a bright tangy finish. It is like candy in a jar. If you want a naturally set, medium sweet, relatively neutral honey which is perfect to use in hot drinks and teas,  then this is the one.. It comes in early September and is quite limited in quantity.

Sunflower honey is naturally, extremely pure because the long coarse sunflower stem acts like a filter to soil contaminants.

It is known to have many beneficial properties as well as having a reputation in certain parts of the world as being particularly helpful with digestive and heart/lung health and also as a general "tonic" ( in addition to all the other usual antibacterial properties of honey)

This Sunflower honey also comes from the Alentejo region, which is hot dry and arid in the summer months and the least populated part of Europe. 

Our lovely Raw Sunflower honey comes from two master beekeepers, Sr Fernando and Pedro, a young, highly gifted, multi generational beekeeper who has also learned the craft from his uncle.

SEASONAL UPDATE:

This years sunflower is the best we have seen yet, Typically intermittent rains will allow other wildlfower nectars to find their way into sunflower honey, Owing to the southern European drought the Sunflower honey this year is nearly a 100% pure as few other flowers grew during this unusually dry season.

Honey and Crystallization. Crystallization is a completely natural process and occurs with all raw honey. The speed and size of the crystallization depends on variations in the balance of sugars, ambient temperature and to some extent water content  If your honey is set hard, you can loosen it up by placing it in a pan of hand hot water, (and repeat as necessary) using a spoon placed in hot water first and of course storing it in a sunny/warm place in the house. 

BULK DISCOUNTS

This product is already heavily discounted so no bulk discounts will be applicable

 

You may find cheaper raw honey than ours, but you wont find better...

Raw Portuguese Heather honey,  locally known as "Urze", is a potent, rich, delicious, aromatic honey. Also highly esteemed for its antibacterial and antioxidant properties. Recent Portuguese studies show it to be more potent than Chestnut honey and very high in phenolic compounds

If you've bought our Heather honey in the past you would know that our Portuguese Algarvian heather usually comes from the "Erica" family of heather not the Calluna, or Ling like the Scottish Heather. It is not thixotropic or jelly like in that way, but is a rich dark, viscous honey. This is a truly rare and beautiful honey; smoky, strong aromatic.

The Erica Heather (at least 6 species of white and red) flowers in the winter months in the Algarve, it provides valuable food to the bees and quite often is not taken for this very reason. Should the spring flowers be late or the weather harsh, the bees will eat most or all of it, before it is taken.

Honey and Crystallization. Crystallization is a completely natural process and occurs with all raw honey. The speed and size of the crystallization depends on variations in the balance of sugars, ambient temperature and to some extent water content  If your honey is set hard, you can loosen it up by placing it in a pan of hand hot water, (and repeat as necessary) using a spoon placed in hot water first and of course storing it in a sunny/warm place in the house. Near a radiator or heat source is fine as it needs to go over 42 degrees C for a while to destroy enzymes and for sugars to degrade. 

BULK DISCOUNTS

please call or email us if you require any help making a bulk purchase. Thanks

You may find cheaper raw honey than ours, but you wont find better...

Another award winning ,100% Raw, cold-extracted, unfiltered, Orange Blossom Honey from the Algarve. A luxurious, sweet,  floral, highly scented honey, full of the delicate scent orange flowers.  Golden and runny when warm, sets with an extremely fine, smooth, creamy crystal structure when cold. This years Orange Blossom honey is even lighter, more delicate, floral and piercingly sweet than last years. It is like tasting an orchard of Orange flowers.

If you like your honey light, sweet and floral, this is the one. The Algarve region is famous for its citrus orchards and the orange blossom honey produced from this region has tremendous variety. We have tried to pick an example which is a true classic.

Perfect for use in or on desserts.

Please remember Orange Blossom honey sets or crystallizes quite quickly and is harvested in early summer, so if you are ordering in the late autumn or winter months it is unlikely to still be runny unless we have recently jarred another batch.

This is what the judges at the Great Taste Awards had to say about our Orange Blossom...

"Pale golden honey, fragrant and floral. Tastes smooth and very moreish.
Judges loved this and all went back for more! We particularly like the clarity and viscosity.
Just the ticket on your breakfast toast or on yogurt." "Very light on the nose, on the palate there is a vibrancy of fresh petals, sparkly and then quite short - there is a delicate sweetness."

Honey and Crystallization. Crystallization is a completely natural process and occurs with all raw honey. The speed and size of the crystallization depends on variations in the balance of sugars, ambient temperature and to some extent water content  If your honey is set hard, you can loosen it up by placing it in a pan of hand hot water, (and repeat as necessary) using a spoon placed in hot water first and of course storing it in a sunny/warm place in the house. 

BULK DISCOUNTS

please call or email us if you require any help making a bulk purchase. Thanks

You may find cheaper raw honey than ours, but you wont find better...

 

A 3 Star Great Taste Award in 2020

 This 100% Raw, cold-extracted, unfiltered wildflower honey is one of the few multifloral honeys we currently sell.

Quite simply in our opinion this is one the best honeys we have ever tasted, bar none. From any country, any variety. This is a dark western Algarvian wildflower, made by one of our most experienced beekeepers who takes great trouble to produce this type and there is a very limited amount each year.

Made from bees foraging on the abundant spring wildflowers that carpet the hillsides and meadows of the Western and Central Algarve. This honey is made by the same master beekeeper who produced our other 3 star Great Taste Award Winning Heather honey.  Parabens Manel and Pedro ..

Wildflower honey can vary tremendously in colour and flavour depending on the location of the hives and the weather.

This wildflower honey is a dark and highly complex honey, made from the diverse wildflowers including Carob, wild Lavender, Borage, Narcissus, Daisies, Buttercups, Vipers Burgloss,, Lupins, and many more. A wonderful tasty complex honey for anyone with a sweet tooth. This honey is a timeless classic.

take a look at this wonderful site which shows the how wildflowers of Portugal.http://www.pbase.com/valterj/wild_flowers_ii&page=all

 

NEW for this season

Many of you are familiar with our classic Raw Arbutus honey from the Serra da Monchique. with it's unusual and quite strong bitter caramel taste. Well for all of you who love Arbutus and enjoy some of it's remarkable benefits, or for those of you who would like something a little less bitter but still potent and wonderful, we have a VERY LIMITED amount of this exceptional honey which is a southern Alentejana Wildflower honey with just enough Arbutus nectar to deliver a delicate bitter finish. This is a truly a  connoisseurs' honey, and for all of you and anyone who would appreciate something a little different and quite unique, This one is for you.

This honey is unlikely to ever be made again and is one-off vintage. Get it while you can.

Chestnut Raw Honey is a silky, dark amber honey with the distinct floral, nutty taste of chestnut with the fragrance of chestnut flowers. Our Chestnut honey comes from the sweet Chestnut tree or Castanea Sativa. Chestnut honey can range from very dark and bitter to milder and sweeter depending on the proportion of Chestnut honeydew and other flower nectars. This superb raw Chestnut honey is set apart by its slight astringency and slight acidity which lifts it and sets it apart from other chestnut honeys which can be both flat and or sharply bitter and one dimensional.

Our Chestnut honey comes from a producer in the Mirandela area of the far North-East of Portugal, an area famed for its chestnut forests in and around the Montesinho National Park. This is a rich, aromatic, beautifully balanced Chestnut honey, some of the best we've ever tried.

For all of you who use honey to sweeten your drinks, Chestnut honey is perfect in coffee, it complements the taste of coffee with a lovely nutty flavour. Its also adds a wonderful festive touch to Christmas desserts and glazes.

Chestnut honey is a honeydew honey, as well as a nectar honey, known for its antioxidant properties. Honeydew is rich in Oligosaccharides and is made by bees foraging on sweet aphid secretions, where aphids have first fed on the sap of the trees or even fruits. Owing to the composition of its sugars (low in glucose) it tends not to crystallize easily and stays runny longer.

Honey and Crystallization. Crystallization is a completely natural process and occurs with all raw honey. The speed and size of the crystallization depends on variations in the balance of sugars, ambient temperature and to some extent water content  If your honey is set hard, you can loosen it up by placing it in a pan of hand hot water, (and repeat as necessary) using a spoon placed in hot water first and of course storing it in a sunny/warm place in the house. 

BULK DISCOUNTS

please call or email us if you require any help making a bulk purchase. Thanks

We are aware that times are getting a little harder for most and have managed to source this pleasing Orange and Wildflower honey from one of our Algarvian beekeepers. It is a little cheaper than most of our honeys because the percentage of Orange blossom nectar is not enough for it to be considered a monofloral honey. 

This Algarvian honey comes from the area around Silves and is darker than a conventional Orange blossom honey owing to the presence of Wildflowers. It is a pleasing honey perfect for everyday use brought to you at a modest price with no compromise on quality.

Arbutus Unedo "bitter honey", an highly medicinal honey, also known as Strawberry Tree honey, comes from only a few places, southern Portugal, Sardinia/Corsica and Greece. it has a truly unusual bitter/sweet complex multi layered taste and is not for the unadventurous! The closest way to describe it might be a bitter caramel. ( though some have used adjectives like "psychedelic".). To be honest we were a little doubtful when we introduced Arbutus honey to the UK, we wondered whether the bitterness might be too much, but so far you've proved our doubts baseless.

Arbutus honey contains Homogentisic acid, a powerful phenolic acid.The antioxidant and antibacterial qualities of this honey are truly exceptional and it is one of the most antioxidant as well as antibacterial honeys in the world. Studies we have seen suggest that this is possibly the most antioxidant rich honey available much more so than Buckwheat or Chestnut honey.

Anecdotal evidence we have heard also suggests this honey does not cause blood sugar to spike and is often used locally by diabetics.(This is not a medical claim- please consult your doctor if you are diabetic). It is also known to be beneficial for lung health.

Arbutus honey is extremely rare and made in limited quantities and not necessarily every year, we source our Arbutus honey from 3 different sources each of which are quite distinct in character. This year Fernando one of very best beekeepers produced all our Arbutus honey.and it is superb. Not too bitter, Very palatable.

The Arbutus honey you buy can vary in flavour and texture over time depending on which source it came from. Some are very bitter and some are sweeter with a small percentage of Portuguese heather or Eucalyptus. They are all wonderful and beneficial. Arbutus honey is typically very expensive, but we try to bring it to you at a reasonable price so it remains accessible and not exclusive or prohibitive like active Manuka honey.

The bees forage on the Arbutus Bush, an evergreen that has many medicinal properties and flowers in winter. 

 

 

Our current batch of Arbutus is the creamy pure Arbutus from Monchique and the vicinity.

This is pure highly active honey with astonishing antibacterial properties. Like an highly active Manuka without the price tag.

This is quite simply the best tasting and purest Arbutus honey available.

Honey and Crystallization. Crystallization is a completely natural process and occurs with all raw honey. The speed and size of the crystallization depends on variations in the balance of sugars, ambient temperature and to some extent water content  If your honey is set hard, you can loosen it up by placing it in a pan of hand hot water, (and repeat as necessary) using a spoon placed in hot water first and of course storing it in a sunny/warm place in the house. 

BULK DISCOUNTS

please call or email us if you require any help making a bulk purchase. Thanks