I Had Always Thought,

that honey was sweet,

but honey made from the Strawberry Tree, (arbutus unedo), is very bitter indeed, photograph Basotxerri/Wikimedia Commons, Sardinia is where you will find the famous arbutus honey called “miele amaro”, bitter honey in Italian, and sometimes labeled as miele di corbezzolo, or corbezzolo honey, the origins of the honey go back for quite some time, there are references to it in the writings of famous ancient figures like Cicero, Virgil and Ovid, who noted the contrasting taste between Sardinian honey and the sweet honey of the Hyblean Mountains, so why make bitter honey? because it is packed full of vitamins and minerals, has anti-inflammatory properties, and has been used as a sleep inducer and cough sedative for generations, 

it is a difficult honey to make, for several reasons. For one, the corbezollo flowers in autumn, and require special weather conditions (abundant summer rains and a mild August) to do so. Then, there’s the bell shape of the small flowers, which makes it tough for the bees to get in and collect the nectar, lastly, the rainy autumn weather makes it difficult for bees to leave their hives and collect the necessary nectar, and a particularly heavy downpour can literally halt the corbezzolo flower from opening its petals. For all these reasons, corbezzolo honey is produced in very limited amounts, making it one of the rarest, most valuable types of honey in the world, Corbezzolo honey has a complex flavor profile, with sharp notes of balsamic vinegar, pine tree sap, licorice, a hint of leather, coffee, and a smokey finish. But to the average person, it just tastes bitter, either you like it, or you do not, there is no middle ground,

 “Everything that the island of Sardinia produces, men and things, is bad!” Roman philosopher and lawyer Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) once said in the defense of a man accused of murder in Sardinia. “Even the honey, abundant on that island, is bitter!” it is not fully understood why corbezzolo honey is bitter when most other types of honey are so sweet, but some believe that it has something to do with the glycoside arbutin present in the flowers of the strawberry tree, because of its distinctively bitter taste, corbezzolo honey is usually paired with other foods, such as fatty cheeses like pecorino or grana, or Sardinian desserts like seadas or orillettas, it is also very popular as an addition to espresso, I have to say as far as honey is concerned I do not like it all, sweet or bitter!