Bosnian black honey

balkan-cuisinehoney

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, I bought some black honey that someone was selling on the roadside in unlabeled jars. It was the most delicious honey I've ever had. It tasted like caramel but also like honey. It was very dark, almost black. It was less viscous than typical honey.

I tried finding it on the internet, and someone said it might be forest honey, but I found two imported European forest honey products, and they were not the honey for which I was looking.

Can you help me find that delicious honey? I'm curious what it's called and where I can buy it in the US.

Best Answer

It is honeydew honey. It is not made from nectar, but from tree parasite secretions. It has a quite different taste from regular flower/nectar honey, and it is much darker. Sometimes it is also called forest honey.

Wikipedia has a paragraph on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Honeydew_honey

There is a slim possibility that it is not a real honey at all, but pine honey, which is actually a jelly made from pine flowers/leaves (it uses the fresh tips where the needles are very soft). It is used as a bee honey substitute, not a fruit jelly substitute, and the name also includes the word "honey", so there is a chance for miscommunication, especially if a language barrier is present. But I think you'd have described the taste differently. It is also a richer taste than normal honey, but a bit sharper, not caramel-like mellow, and the pine resin aroma is discernible.