Honey is much more than a natural sweetener. For centuries, communities have cherished honey for its unique taste, unimaginable variety, excellent health benefits, and versatile uses. From soothing a sore throat to fighting dehydration, keeping your heart healthy, and replacing sugar in your favourite delicacies, honey has earned an irreplaceable place in the kitchen and medicine cabinets around the globe.
In today’s blog, we will be looking at the best honey in the world by country and find out what makes it a true liquid gold.
Centauri honey from Turkey is celebrated for its rarity and deep flavour profile. Sourced from beehives nestled amongst diverse wildflowers, this honey carries a hint of spice and earth. It is regarded as the world’s most expensive honey, earning a spot for itself in the Guinness World Records.
What makes it so rare and unique? It is made by a distinct colony of bees who feast on native medicinal herbs. Their unique diet enhances the quality of honey, making it extremely rich in phenol, flavonoid, and antioxidant contents.
Want to know something extraordinary about this honey? It is harvested only once a year and intentionally delayed until mid-November to ensure a complete natural production cycle for bees.
Next up is Manuka Honey from New Zealand. It is native to the isolated regions of the country where bees feast on the manuka bush. This honey is dark, thick in consistency, and has a distinctly earthy flavour.
What makes it sought after? The honey is widely recognized for its potent antibacterial qualities, making it a popular natural remedy for wound care and throat soothing. There’s more. Beyond medicinal use, its robust taste is very well appreciated as a delightful addition to teas, yogurt, or even gourmet dishes.
Harvested from the ancient Sidr Tree, this honey stands out for its deep, complex flavor and dark, enticing hue. The Yemini beekeepers only use traditional methods generation after generation to produce pure and potent honey. Furthermore, Sidr honey is available in limited quantities due to the specific growing conditions. It is best known for its antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiviral properties.
This honey makes it to the list of best honey because of the bees' foraging pattern. Harvested from the Tualang tree in dense tropical forests, the fiercely wild, free-ranging bees create an intensely flavoured honey, almost like rich caramel. Moreover, it is often unprocessed, which means that it retains its natural enzymes, minerals, and vitamins.
Greece is blessed with an abundance of thyme flowers in the countryside. Golden Thyme Honey is rich, amber-colored honey that’s quite known for its smooth texture and lingering aftertaste. Again, the honey boasts a variety of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals like potassium, manganese, and magnesium. This makes it antibacterial and antiviral.
Produced by stingless bees native to Thailand, this honey has high levels of antioxidants, phenolic compounds, and flavonoids. It has a watery texture with a high moisture content. Furthermore, its taste is slightly more acidic, ranging from sweet to tangy. Finally, stingless bee honey is primarily used for medicinal purposes, given its higher levels of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties compared to other traditional honey varieties.
The pine honey is a sweet deviation from traditional floral honey since it is derived from the sap of the pine tree. Turkish beekeepers carefully harvest Pine Honey from coniferous forests, where the pine sap imparts a distinctive character and depth.
The result is a dark, resinous honey with an intense woody smokiness. It has a slightly bitter taste, as it is less sweet than floral honey. What sets it apart is its ability to remain liquid for a long time without crystallizing.
As Africa’s largest honey-producing country, Ethiopia is home to approximately 10 million wild colonies and about 6 million controlled bee colonies. What makes the White Honey from the Tigray Mountains rare and special is its delicate color and subtle flavour. It has a beautiful bright white color with an uneven granular texture. Its taste is mildly sweet with an intense lingering aftertaste. Another point to note? The Tigray mountains are one of the driest, most inaccessible, and fascinating regions, which makes this honey type even more special. Furthermore, white honey is traditionally served during festivals with steam-cooked white wheat bread in Ethiopia.
The Bashkirian honey comes from the Land of Bashkirs, Bashkortostan. It is located between the Ural mountains and the Volga River and is popular for its thick forests featuring over 13,000 rivers that flow through it.
This region has nearly untouched forests of linden and maple, two significant sources of Bashkir honey. What makes this honey rare is the small percentage of bee colonies that belong to the Bashkir subspecies. In fact, this honey is recognized as a geographical indication (GI).
That’s our list of 10 best honey in the world by country. If this interests you, maybe you’d like to check out a few more honey varieties, like lavender honey from France, Acacia honey from Italy, Orange Blossom honey from Spain, and Blue Gum honey from Australia.
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