How to eat Sidr honey (and how not to)

Sidr honey is expensive enough that it is worth knowing how to handle it. Most of the advice below is about not wasting it.

Do not stir it into boiling liquid

This is the common mistake. Raw honey contains enzymes and volatile aromatic compounds, and both are damaged by heat. Dropping a spoonful into freshly boiled tea will not hurt you, but you have paid for something you have just destroyed. Let a drink cool to the point where you could comfortably sip it, then add the honey.

How much, and when

A teaspoon or two is a normal serving. In the one long-term study of people eating Sidr honey daily, the amount used was ten grams — about two teaspoons — taken once a day. Like any honey it is largely sugar, so it counts toward the day's sweetness rather than sitting outside it.

Storage

• —Room temperature, lid closed, out of direct sunlight. Honey does not need refrigeration.
• —Use a dry spoon. Water introduced into the jar is the one thing that can spoil honey.
• —It does not have a meaningful expiry. Honey recovered from Egyptian tombs was still honey.

If it crystallises

Crystallisation is a sign the honey has not been heat-treated to prevent it. The honey is unchanged. Stand the jar in warm — not hot — water for ten minutes and stir. Never microwave it.

Ways to use it that are worth the money

• —Straight off the spoon. This is not a joke; it is the best way to taste a single-origin honey.
• —On sharp, salty cheese — the caramel note works against a hard aged cheese particularly well.
• —Stirred into thick yoghurt with nothing else added.
• —Drizzled over warm bread, once the bread has stopped steaming.

What we would not do is bake with it. Baking heat destroys exactly what you paid for, and a cheaper honey performs identically in a cake.