A year with our bees
Rubber, coffee, forest and rest: the seasons that decide how our honey tastes.
Why raw honey crystallises
It is not sugar added. It is what real honey does when the weather turns cool.
Every winter we get messages from customers worried that their honey has turned to sugar. It has not. Crystallising is a natural change, and it is one of the best signs that honey is raw.
Honey is a very concentrated mix of two sugars, glucose and fructose. When it is cool, below about 20 °C, the glucose slowly forms tiny crystals, and the honey turns thick and pale. Honeys with more glucose, like mustard and rubber honey, set quickly; forest honey, with more fructose, can stay liquid for a year.
Much shop honey never crystallises because it has been heated and finely filtered to remove pollen and the tiny particles crystals form around. That keeps it runny but changes its taste.
To loosen set honey, stand the closed jar in a bowl of warm water, about as hot as a bath, for 20 minutes, and stir. Never microwave it or put it on the stove.
Or enjoy it as it is. Set honey spreads on toast without dripping, which is exactly why we make our creamed honey.
