Retama honey
Delicate and floral with a distinct honeyed-almond sweetness and a clean finish — one of the gentler European honeys, and unusually consistent.
Miel de retama del Teide
A honey from the white broom that covers the high volcanic caldera of Teide on Tenerife, growing at over two thousand metres in a landscape of bare pumice and lava. It is one of the highest-altitude honeys in Europe, pale and delicately sweet, and it comes from a plant that scents the entire caldera when it flowers.
Flavour and aroma
- Aroma
- broom flowers, almond, light vanilla
- Flavour
- almond, soft floral, light caramel
- Finish
- Short and clean.
- Intensity
- Mild
- Sweetness
- Sweet
- Bitterness
- None
- Acidity
- Low
Colour, texture and crystallisation
- Colour
- Extra white (8-17 mm Pfund)White (17-34 mm Pfund)Extra light amber (34-50 mm Pfund)
Pale straw, clear and bright, occasionally with a faint greenish tint.
On setting: Sets to a fine pale cream.
- Texture
- Runny; Soft set; Creamed
- Crystallisation
Moderate — granulates over a few months
A moderate and fine set. Legume honeys generally granulate at a middling rate with an even grain.
Typical composition
- Moisture
- 13–16.5% (typically 15%)
- Fructose
- 36–42% (typically 39%)
- Glucose
- 30–36% (typically 33%)
- pH
- 3.5–4.3 (typically 3.9)
- Electrical conductivity
- 0.1–0.4 mS/cm (typically 0.25 mS/cm)
These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey.
What these mean: the sugars and the ratio · moisture · conductivity · how each is measured
Where it comes from
- Floral source
- Spartocytisus supranubius, the Teide white broom, endemic to the high caldera of Tenerife and to La Palma.
- Origins
- Teide National Park and the high caldera of Tenerife, Canary Islands, above roughly 2,000 metres.
- Origin pages
Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.
- Harvest
- May to June (northern hemisphere)
A brief window at extreme altitude, and one of the shortest harvest periods of any European honey.
- The bees
- Hives are carried up into the national park for the flowering and removed afterwards, under permit. The Canary black bee is the local stock.
- Usual processing
- Raw, Coarsely strained, Spun (centrifugally extracted), Creamed (seeded and controlled-set)
Hive placement inside a national park requires permits and is limited, which caps production regardless of demand. Volumes are very small.
What to do with it
A pleasant everyday honey with a genuine almond note, which makes it good in baking despite its delicacy.
At the tableSpreadingDessertsBaking
Pairings
- Almond pastries and turrónClassic
The honey already tastes faintly of almond.
- Fresh cheeses
Mild and lactic against mild and floral.
- Plain yoghurt
Enough character to be noticed without dominating.
Pairing pages this honey appears on
Selected by this honey’s own recorded intensity, flavour families and uses rather than by anything written above — each page prints the rule that put it there.
Where this honey sits in the catalogue
History and traditional use
The retama is the emblematic plant of the Teide caldera, and beekeeping in the park is a long-established seasonal practice now managed under conservation rules.
Sources
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides that cover this honey
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