Leatherwood Honey – Tasmanian Honey Co.

Leatherwood possesses remarkable aromas and flavours; a true distillate of a magnificent ancient landscape. Spicy and piquant…

It is slightly liquid with uniform crystallisation, a smooth creamy texture and an ochre-yellow colour. The perfume is intense with notes of balsamic scents, which develops quickly into clean fresh notes of citrus fruits and white flowers. The flavour is clean and fresh, very balsamic, with lightly spicy notes in its long finish.

Tasmania lies on latitude 42 south, sharing this latitude only with the South Island of New Zealand and Southern Chile. Generally a mountainous and inhospitable area. For a brief 6-8 weeks of the year, summer comes to this wild place and with it the annual blooming of the Leatherwood tree, Eucryphia Lucida. The tree bears an abundance of extremely delicate white flowers with a fresh piquant scent. The bees visit these flowers for six weeks from January to mid-March and collect the distinctive aromatic nectar from them. During this time, our beekeepers camp in the remote wilderness while they remove the surplus honey from the beehives, enabling us to provide this highly sought after honey to connoisseurs around the world.

In keeping with our philosophical commitment to bringing one of the natures most unique gifts to our customers in its uncompromised state, we have adopted a special low-temperature preparation technique. In carefully managing the extraction of the honey from the combs and its cleaning we are able to preserve both the floral essences and the innate vitality of our honey resulting in an aromatic and naturally organic food.

Because we use such low temperatures in the production we do not inhibit the honeys natural tendency to crystalise, so to make the final product easy to use we encourage the honey to set with an ultra-fine crystal structure. This imparts to its a buttery and spreadable texture at room temperature. Also easy enough to spoon in and mix in whatever beverage you wish, from a ‘hot toddy’ to a honey lemon tea. Other commercial brands of honey use high temperatures to delay the crystallising process, but this heat destroys the delicate flora essences, changes the flavour and generally compromises the other qualities and potential benefits of honey.

Our Leatherwood is naturally organic by virtue of the fact of where it is produced. Consider for a moment the following images of this place: Ancient rainforests located on the global at latitude 42 degrees south is shared only by southernmost New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego. At this latitude, the circumpolar winds whip up a constant westerly wind known as the Roaring Forties. These winds bring with them heavy moisture laden air drawn off the Great Southern Ocean only to deposit much of it as rain on the western side of Tasmania at the same time watering the rainforest where the Leatherwood trees grow and produce its golden harvest. We think of the Leatherwood honey as the ‘distillate’ of this magic place.

A typical comment about Leatherwood Honey -“This is the best honey I’ve ever tasted!”. Connoisseurs of fine food continue to recognise Leatherwood Honey as one of the finest and rarest honey in the world. It is known for its unusual flavour and its complex lingering palate. It has a very unique aroma, considered by honey connoisseurs to be the best. Some describe it as a spicy type of smell and it would be absolute heaven on toast or in some teas. Luxury in a jar!

The healthy vitality contained in this truly natural food, produced as it is from the wilderness forests where no form of pollution exists.
The nectar yield of Leatherwood trees is correlated to the age of the tree. Young Leatherwood trees are a poor nectar source. Research has shown that trees under 75 generally don’t flower at all and the most prolific flowering trees are those that 175 to 210 years old and trees. Unheated and packed raw.

The Tasmanian Honey Company began in 1978 as the concept of Julian Wolfhagen, a beekeeper with a profound passion for Tasmania, its wild forests and the honey that they produce. It is wild honey, sourced from a pristine environment and packaged with minimal handling.

Brand: Tasmanian Honey Co.
Packaging: Tin
Region: Tasmania
Varietal: Leatherwood
Processing: Pasteurized
Size: 350g, 750g