Sardinia honey
The centre of corbezzolo production, and the source of the most bitter honey in commerce.
5 honeys · part of Italy
Flavour signature
The flavour families that recur across this origin’s honeys, counted from their sensory profiles rather than asserted.
Honeys from Sardinia
- Strawberry tree honeyLight amber · IntenseAggressively bitter — coffee grounds, artichoke and burnt sugar, with the sweetness arriving late and briefly. Nothing in food prepares most people for it.
- Sulla honeyWater white · DelicateVery delicate and clean, with a soft almond-and-fresh-grass note and almost no aftertaste.
- Asphodel honeyWater white · DelicateDelicate and softly perfumed with a fresh, almost vegetal lift and a silky weight that gives it more presence than the flavour alone would.
- Thistle honeyExtra light amber · ModerateWarm and herbaceous with a hay-and-spice character and a faint bitterness at the end.
- Cardoon honeyLight amber · PronouncedSavoury and faintly bitter, with a warm caramel body and an unmistakable green-vegetable note that is genuinely artichoke-like.
When these honeys are typically harvested
Asphodel honey Mar–May
Sulla honey Apr–Jun
Cardoon honey May–Jul
Thistle honey May–Jul
Strawberry tree honey Oct–Dec
Plants behind these honeys
- ThistleGalactites tomentosaAmong the most productive nectar plants in Mediterranean grassland, and one of the few that supports butterflies and bees equally well.
- Strawberry treeArbutus unedoValuable out of all proportion to its abundance, because of when it flowers. Late nectar lets colonies enter winter with fresh stores in a landscape that has otherwise shut down.
- AsphodelAsphodelus ramosusA major early nectar source in country that offers little else at that season, and rated highly for pollen as well.
- Globe artichokeCynara cardunculusAn outstanding nectar and pollen source, and one of the single most productive flowers in a garden.
Bees associated with this origin
- Western honey beeApis melliferaThe bee behind essentially all the world's honey, and the one most people mean when they say 'bee'. Apis mellifera is a perennial eusocial insect that overwinters as a living cluster rather than dying back each year — which is the whole reason it stores honey in quantity, and therefore the reason it was ever domesticated. It is native to Europe, Africa and western Asia and has been carried by people to every continent except Antarctica.
- BumblebeesBombusLarge, furry, loud, and cold-tolerant in a way no honey bee is. Bumblebees run annual colonies: a mated queen emerges alone in spring, founds a nest by herself, raises workers through the summer, produces new queens and males in late season, and then the entire colony dies except those new queens. They do make honey, in the strict sense of ripened nectar stores — just a few days' worth, because they have no winter to survive as a colony.
- Long-horned beesEucera and MelissodesSolitary summer bees whose males carry antennae longer than their own bodies, and the group a bee orchid is pretending to be. Several Ophrys orchids produce flowers that mimic the shape, hair and scent of a female Eucera closely enough that males attempt to mate with them, picking up pollen in the process — one of the most extraordinary pollination systems in botany, and one that only works because these particular bees exist.
- Italian honey beeApis mellifera ligusticaThe most widely kept honey bee subspecies in the world, and the golden-banded bee most people picture when they think of one. Italian bees were exported from the Ligurian valleys from the mid nineteenth century and now underpin commercial beekeeping across the Americas, Australasia and much of Europe — chosen for gentleness, prolific brood rearing and a strong disinclination to swarm.
- Carpenter beesXylocopaThe largest bees most people ever see, and among the loudest. Carpenter bees excavate their own tunnels in dead wood using their mandibles — a remarkable feat for an insect — and the biggest species are the size of the top joint of a thumb. The violet carpenter bee, glossy black with iridescent blue-violet wings, is one of the most spectacular insects in Europe and is spreading northwards.
Elsewhere in Italy
Guides covering these honeys
- What makes honey expensivePrice tracks scarcity, harvest difficulty and certification cost far more than it tracks quality. Understanding which of those you are paying for is most of the skill in buying honey.
- How plants decide honey flavourNearly everything that distinguishes one honey from another arrives in the nectar. The bee contributes enzymes and evaporation; the plant contributes everything you taste.
- Strong honeys: a guide to the assertive endA shortlist of the honeys that demand attention, sorted by which kind of strength they have — because aroma, bitterness and mineral weight are three different problems.
- How honey pairing actually worksFour mechanisms decide nearly every honey pairing, and none of them is a matter of taste. Learn them and you can pair a honey with a food this site has never heard of.
Explore these honeys
- Honey finder
Which honey should I buy for what I actually want to do with it?
- Flavour selector
I like this taste — which honeys have it?
- Honey comparison
How do these honeys actually differ, beyond colour?
- Honey substitute calculator
How much honey do I use instead of sugar, and what else has to change?
- Storage guide
How should I store honey, and what do I do when it sets?