Fir Tree Honey
Once a year. PDO status. Silver and Gold-award.
Fir Tree Honey is produced once a year, in July, in the fir forests of the Peloponnese at 1,100 metres, by Vasilis and Sotiris. Made from honeydew, it is raw and unfiltered, thick and creamy, with hints of orange blossom and citrus and a caramel finish. Its rarity is why it holds Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status, and it has won a European Silver Taste Award (2019) and Gold Taste Award (2023).
250gr · Production: July
- • PDO fir vanilla honey
- • Gold 2023 & Silver 2019 Taste Awards
- • Raw & unfiltered
Awards
- European Gold Taste Award 2023
- European Silver Taste Award 2019
Flavour Profile
What is honeydew?
Every drop of Riza honey is made by honeybees, from start to finish. What makes it different is where the bees forage.
Most honey begins as flower nectar. Ours begins in the forest. Tiny native insects feed on the sap of Greek pine and fir trees and leave sweet droplets on the bark and needles. This is honeydew. Our bees collect it just as they would nectar, carry it back to the hive, and turn it into honey in exactly the same way: adding their enzymes, fanning away the moisture and sealing it in wax.
The result is still 100% natural raw honey. It’s simply honey from the forest rather than the meadow, darker and deeper, and much rarer.
(Nothing to do with melons. We get asked.)
Read: Is honeydew honey real honey?FromHivetoJar
A patient process — followed for every jar of fir tree honey.
The forest
The hives sit in the fir forests of Mainalo at 1,100 metres, far from farmland and pesticides.
Honeydew
The bees collect honeydew from the fir trees. Some years it barely flows, and there is little or no honey.
Harvesting
Vasilis and Sotiris harvest once a year, in July.
Jarring
Jarred raw and unfiltered, with nothing added.
To your table
Limited production: once it is gone, it is gone until next July.
Tested, not just told.
We sent our Fir honey to an independent university lab. Here is what they measured, how it compares with the legal limits, and why each number matters to you.
Has it been heated?
Freshness (HMF)
1.6mg/kg
Legal maximum 40About 4% of the legal limit.
HMF is a natural compound that builds up when honey is heated or stored for a long time. Many commercial honeys are warmed so they pour and bottle faster. A reading this low means ours was never heated.
Are the bees’ enzymes intact?
Diastase activity
19.6DN
Legal minimum 8More than twice the legal minimum.
Diastase is one of the enzymes bees add as they turn honeydew into honey. Heat and over-processing destroy it, so a high reading is one of the clearest signs of honey left as the bees made it.
Was it harvested ripe?
Moisture
14.4%
Legal maximum 20%Well below the 20% limit.
Bees only seal a cell with wax once they have fanned the honey dry enough to keep. Honey taken too early holds more water, tastes thinner and can ferment. Low moisture means patience at harvest.
Is it really from the forest?
Electrical conductivity
1.28mS/cm
Honeydew threshold 0.8Confirmed honeydew honey.
Conductivity measures the minerals in honey, and it is how the law tells honeydew honey apart from flower honey. Above 0.8 means the bees gathered from trees, not flowers.
Why does it stay so smooth?
Glucose + fructose
47%
Flower honey: 60% or moreBelow the minimum for flower honey.
Honey crystallises when glucose comes out of solution. Ours contains less of these simple sugars than flower honey, so it stays runny for much longer.
Is it clean?
Residue screening
Nonedetected
Tetracyclines · not detected4 hive treatments · below reporting levelTested for antibiotics and common hive treatments.
Some beekeepers treat hives with antibiotics or chemical miticides, and traces can end up in the jar. Ours was screened for both.
Fir Tree Honey, 2023 harvest. Independently tested by the Laboratory of Apiculture-Sericulture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (accredited lab), report no. 12679. Results apply to the tested batch.
Legal limits: Council Directive 2001/110/EC, retained in the UK by The Honey (England) Regulations 2015.
Customer reviews
Customers most often praise the taste, and several Greek buyers call it the best Greek honey they have tried. They also mention its thick, smooth texture, its lower sugar and the modern packaging, which many say makes it a great gift. Two buyers gave three stars: one felt the 250g jar was small for the price, and one received a broken jar and was unhappy with how slowly the replacement was handled.
Betse E.
January 2025 · riza.co customer
This is a great honey with a lower sugar content and depth of botanical flavour!
Cathi DG
October 2023 · Verified Amazon purchase · US
The Best Honey
This honey is excellent. Taste and consistency are above the rest. Sadly, my most recent experience with the sellar wasn't a great one. My jar arrived broken. I repeatedly reached out to the company who was very slow to respond. They asked for photos which I sent right away. I was then told I would receive a replacement. They said Amazon packed the jar incorrectly. When I didn't receive a replacement after a couple weeks I reached out to Amazon only to be told that I would not be receiving a replacement. I got a credit instead.
I really wanted the product. So, the product gets high marks but the purveyor doesn't.
Roanoke Buyer
December 2021 · Verified Amazon purchase · US
Wonderful
I have tried many varieties of Greek Honey and found Riza's Fir Tree Honey to be the best and I am Greek. It is thick and has a wonderful taste from start to finish. Also, it is low in sugar and has health benefits. Will definitely be purchasing it again. Riza, thank you for producing such a wonderful product.
