Rosemary Honey 20kg

01 · THE BLOOM

A late-winter honey

Rosemary flowers early, which makes this one of the first harvests of the year: on the Mediterranean it starts coming off at the end of February, and inland it runs into April.

On the palate it is a pale honey with a light aroma, carrying camphorous and fruity notes picked up mostly retronasally. In the mouth it gains intensity and stays simply sweet. A little thyme alongside can leave an acid edge, and other blooms in the area can add a glyceric, almost fatty feel.

02 · RAW AND UNPASTEURISED

What that means in practice

It is the question that reaches this page most: it is neither heated nor pasteurised, and the filtering is coarse — enough to take out wax and bee debris, not to leave it optically empty.

The consequence comes with it: honey like this crystallises, and rosemary does so early and with a fine grain. It is not a fault or a sign that anything is wrong; it is what honey that has seen no heat does. Depending on the harvest date it may reach you liquid or already set.

03 · IF YOU WANT IT LIQUID

Water bath, and below 40 °C

It goes back to running with a gentle water bath, stirring, and one rule not worth breaking: do not go above 40 °C. Past that you start spoiling exactly what you paid for by buying it raw.

With a 20 kg pail the sensible thing is to liquefy only what you are going to jar. Heating and cooling the whole pail over and over is the quickest way to end up with it cooked.

04 · THE FORMAT

For packers and heavy users

The 20 kg work out at around fourteen litres — honey weighs roughly 1.4 kg per litre — so the pail fills some 40 jars of 500 g or 20 of one kilo.

If you are going to jar it for sale, labelling and traceability are on you: what you buy here is bulk honey, not a labelled product.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is bulk honey, just as it leaves the settling tank: