About this honey
This honey comes from hives kept on the farm at Klein La Rochelle, just outside Rawsonville. The bees forage on the indigenous fynbos that grows around the property. We extract gently after each main flow, strain out the wax, and pour straight into jars. No heating, no blending, no chemistry, just honey as it leaves the comb.
Where it comes from
Our hives sit on the farm itself. The bees work a flight range of a few kilometres around them, which means what you taste in the jar comes from indigenous Cape vegetation, such as fynbos in flower, the odd patch of wild herbs, as well as surrounding orchards and vineyards.
How it tastes
Fynbos honey is its own thing, more floral and flavourful than the supermarket-blend honey most people know, with a slight herbal note that fades into something almost buttery on the finish. We harvest our honey 4 times per annum, and each harvest tastes different depending on which flowers were in bloom during the flow. That’s not a flaw, it’s the point.
How to use it
Raw honey is best when it isn’t cooked. Where it shines:
- It enhances the taste of Rooibos and other herbal teas
- Stir into tea once it’s cool enough to sip (boiling water kills the live enzymes)
- On toast, oats, or yoghurt • Drizzled over fresh cheese, ricotta, or labneh
- With fresh fruit such as pears, figs, and apples.
- As a sweetener in salad dressings
- Spooned straight from the jar for a sore throat.
It’s also fine for baking, though if you’re going to heat it past about 40°C, you’re losing the enzymes that make raw honey worth the extra money. For high-heat cooking, use a cheaper supermarket honey and save this one for the table.
How to store it
Room temperature, away from direct sunlight. Don’t put it in the fridge as the cold speeds up crystallisation and makes it harder to spoon. A cupboard is fine. Raw honey doesn’t spoil. Archaeologists have found edible honey in Egyptian tombs, but the flavour and aroma are best within about two years of bottling.
A note on crystallisation
All raw honey crystallises eventually. Some flowers crystallise faster than others. Fynbos sits somewhere in the middle. If your jar goes cloudy or grainy after a few months, it hasn’t gone off. It’s actually a sign that the honey is the real thing: heat-treated supermarket honey has had the natural crystal seeds destroyed and stays clear for years. To get it pourable again, put the sealed jar in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for half an hour. Never microwave it and never put it on the stove. This will kill the things that make raw honey worth eating.
