Manuka Honey

Manuka is a scrubby native tree with small white flowers that opens for a few weeks in early summer, mostly on hillsides that were cleared once and left to regrow. Bees worked onto those flowers make a honey that is dark, thick and strongly flavoured, closer to bitter than to the sweetness of clover honey. It is graded by systems printed on the jar, usually UMF or MGO numbers, which measure chemical markers rather than taste, and the price climbs steeply with the number. Northland, the Coromandel and the East Cape are the main producing areas, and beekeepers truck hives out into the scrub for the short flowering window each year.

What you actually see

• Manuka in flower - hillsides of small white blossom for a few weeks in late spring and early summer.
• Graded jars - the UMF and MGO numbers on labels, and what they do and do not measure.
• Hives in the scrub - stacked boxes trucked onto remote hillsides for the flowering window.
• Tastings - manuka set against clover, rewarewa and other native honeys for comparison.

When to go

Honey is sold year-round, while the flowering that makes it runs a few weeks between roughly November and January, varying with latitude and weather. Producer shops and visitor centres in Northland, the Coromandel and around Gisborne open all year and most run tastings. Extraction happens in the weeks after flowering, when some producers open their sheds to visitors.

Honest expectations

It is very expensive, the grading systems are confusing and not directly comparable between brands, and mislabelled product has been a long-running problem in export markets. The taste is strong and medicinal, and people who buy a large jar on reputation often do not finish it. Health claims made for it run well ahead of settled evidence, so buy it as honey.

Nearby

The Bay of Islands and Northland's kauri forests are within a couple of hours' drive of most producers.