Honey Tasting - some unusual raw & organic honeys

Today (Sunday) we did a bit of a honey tasting with Jenny, a customer from London who came down to Brighton to visit us.

We tried a range of honeys that we're looking at stocking including:

• Strawberry Tree honey (nothing to do with Strawberrys!), very unusual honey with a bitter taste. Supposed to have a range of medicinal benefits. The fruit really does look like a strawberry. The sample of honey that we tried comes from Sardinia. A scientific study found that this honey was the highest of ten different honeys in a test of antioxidant levels. (You do have to purchase the article unfortunately to read the report from the prior link.)
  

• Artichoke Honey, again quite unusual. This honey is light with a slightly oily texture.
  
• Sidr honey, from Yemen, renowned by Muslims and I believe mentioned in the Koran. Sidr honey is dark, a little similar to heather honey. A lot of Muslim customers have been ordering heather honey because they consider the flavour and consistency to be very similar to Sidr honey. Sidr honey is quite dark with a malty flavour.Sidr honey has been tested in Canada against Manuka honey and has similar antibacterial qualities. Here's a link to an article about the study.
  

• Sunflower honey from Spain, which has quite an oily texture but a pleasant flavour. It's light in honey and has a granular texture - but quite fine, unlike other raw honeys which have a more crystallised texture when set.
  
• Some English raw honey, which didn't have a very distinctive flavour.
  

We will be seeking to stock some of these honeys, definitely the artichoke honey (which is also organic). Difficult to get hold of Sidr honey - it is very expensive to buy, around $50 a kilo, which could make it prohibitively expensive to sell. But we would like to stock some. The Strawberry Tree honey is also very expensive, would probably retail at about £10 a quarter kilo, comparable in price with Manuka.