Raw forest honey 900 g

01 · SENSORY PROFILE

Malty, not very sweet, with salt

Amber to dark amber, reddish against the light. The aroma opens floral and turns malty at once, toasted cereal, almost old must. On the palate it is sweet with clear salty notes, less cloying than a nectar monofloral, and retronasally the maltiness grows and leaves a long finish. As honeydews have little glucose against fructose, it stays liquid or slightly dense for months.

02 · ORIGIN

Quercus, undergrowth and late summer

The main source is honeydew from holm oak, oak and cork oak, with the nectar of wild legumes, rockroses, heathers, brambles and some undergrowth labiate. It is produced across the peninsula except the coastal strip, above all in the inland mountain ranges, and harvested in late summer. Like any honey of a landscape and a season, two harvests are not identical: the share of honeydew and the colour change with the year.

03 · WHAT RAW MEANS

Unpasteurised; what the law measures

“Raw” is the trade name of the range: honey bottled unpasteurised. Directive 2001/110/EC, in Spain Royal Decree 1049/2003, sets what separates a honeydew honey from a flower honey and what betrays heat: electrical conductivity of at least 0.8 mS/cm in honeydews and blends, HMF below 40 mg/kg and diastase of at least 8 Schade units. Each lot’s values go in its quality sheet, not on this page, because they change with the harvest.

04 · AT THE TABLE

Where a flower honey falls short

With its salty notes and malty base it works where another honey is too sweet: cured and blue cheeses, fresh goat’s cheese, foie, glazed roasts, mustard marinades and sweet-and-sour dishes. Alone, on buttered toast, Greek yoghurt or black tea. Anyone who thinks they do not like honey because it is cloying usually changes their mind with this one. Keep closed, cool and dry, no fridge. It is a food, not a treatment, and is not given to children under 12 months.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

One 900 g glass jar is supplied; the rest of the raw range (heather, eucalyptus, thyme, wildflower, lemon, loquat) has its own pages.