Raw vs. Processed Honey

Most honey on supermarket shelves has been heated and finely filtered before it's bottled. That makes it look perfectly clear and stops it from setting for months, which is handy for a shop. But it also takes away a lot of what makes honey interesting in the first place.

Raw honey is simply honey that's been spun out of the comb, strained through a coarse mesh to catch bits of wax, and poured into a jar. At Golden Hive we never warm ours above the temperature inside the hive. That keeps the natural enzymes, the pollen and the delicate aromas that change from one harvest to the next. A spring jar from our wildflower meadows tastes nothing like one from late summer.

Heating honey to around 70°C (160°F), which is common in large-scale processing, breaks down some of those enzymes and cooks off much of the flavour. Ultra-fine filtering strips out the pollen as well, and pollen is one of the few ways to tell where a honey actually came from.

The question I get asked most is why raw honey goes solid. That's crystallisation, and it's a sign of good honey, not a fault. Honey holds more sugar than it can keep dissolved, and raw honey has more tiny particles for crystals to form around. If you like it runny, stand the jar in a bowl of warm water, not hot, and stir now and then until it loosens. Please don't put it in the microwave.

One important note: no honey, raw or processed, should be given to babies under a year old. For everyone else, a spoonful of raw honey in yoghurt, on warm toast or whisked into a salad dressing is the easiest way to taste the difference for yourself.