Black Seed Honey: telling taste from proof

Colour, flow and taste help you discover a black seed honey, but they are not enough to prove it is genuine. To choose, tell apart the product as described, its composition, its declared origin and the documents that go with it. The five pointers below are not home authentication tests.

Look at the product name, the declared origin and the batch information. For our honey, the stated origin is Egypt, in the Nile Delta. A floral name has to be told apart from a honey to which seeds or oil have been added: check the composition of the product in question.

Our honey is described as mahogany in colour. Look at it in the light to enjoy its shade, without turning it into a test of authenticity. Colour alone proves neither the floral origin nor the absence of an added ingredient.

The spoon lets you observe density and flow. These impressions vary, notably with temperature and composition. A runny honey is not automatically diluted; a thick honey does not, on its own, prove that it is genuine.

Taste a little to discover the profile: our Black Seed Honey is described as dense, with a peppery point. The intensity you perceive can vary. A less spicy taste is not enough to conclude that a product is fake.

Pollen analysis can shed light on a botanical origin; on its own it is not a definitive authentication. Methods and results have to be read within their scope. The JRC stresses the importance of suitable analyses and of traceability. Our method separates the documents available from the guarantees they do not give.

Habba sawda: seed, oil or black seed honey

Three distinct products carry very similar names. Habba Sawda (“the black seed” in Arabic) is the seed itself, from Nigella sativa. Black seed oil is pressed from those seeds. Black seed honey is made by the bees from the flowers of the plant: nectar transformed, not an extraction. Three different uses, one name for the plant they come from.

Products and claims to tell apart

A preparation with black seed oil or seeds: its composition differs from a honey of declared floral origin. It has to be identified as such; that difference alone is not grounds for accusing a product of fraud.

Colour: it can raise a question, but no visual check alone proves that a colouring has been added.

An insufficiently documented origin: ask for further information. The absence of a document you can consult does not, on its own, establish fraud.

A single-flower claim: it has to be assessed with evidence suited to the origin claimed, with no invented universal pollen threshold.

Added syrups: detecting them requires a suitable investigation. Tasting or texture is not enough to establish it.

Declared origin · Egypt

Egyptian Black Seed Honey 26,90 €

A mahogany colour, a dense texture and a peppery point.

Discover the honey

Going further

• The morning ritual of black seed honey
• How to tell if honey is real
• Our three rare honeys compared
• The seven rarest honeys