Wadi Do'an & the Hadhramaut highlands, Yemen
Yemen
Sidr from the Hadhramaut is the oldest luxury in the honey trade, and very little of it leaves the region unblended. Ours comes from two groves about an hour apart, and they do not taste the same.
Field notes
- Region
- Wadi Do'an, and the Sidr groves on the escarpment above it, Hadhramaut, eastern Yemen
- Floral source
- Sidr, the jujube Ziziphus spina-christi, growing wild along the wadi floor
- Harvest
- Once a year, in autumn, after the Sidr has finished flowering
- Extraction
- Comb cut by hand and drained at ambient temperature, strained for wax only
- In the jar
- Dark amber, thick and slow off the spoon. Crystallises coarsely over months, which is normal
A valley that grows one thing well
The Hadhramaut is desert. What makes Sidr possible there is the wadi: a seasonal riverbed that floods, drains, and leaves just enough water in the ground for jujube trees to hold on. They grow slowly, they are not planted in rows, and they flower once.
That is the whole explanation for the price. Not scarcity as a marketing position, scarcity as arithmetic. A grove yields what it yields, and there is no second harvest to fall back on.
Valley floor and highland grove
The Valley Collection comes off the wadi floor, where the trees sit in the old flood line. It is the rounder of the two: caramel and date, with a long finish.
The Mountain Reserve comes from groves on the escarpment above the valley, where the trees are older, more scattered, and under more stress. Less honey, more concentrated, drier, more resinous, closer to molasses than to caramel.
What crystallisation means here
Raw Sidr sets. Depending on the room it can go from pourable to spoonable in a few weeks, and it may form coarse crystals or a pale layer on top. None of that is spoilage or adulteration, it is what honey does when it has not been heated to stop it.
If you want it liquid again, stand the jar in water no hotter than you would put your hand in. Boiling water drives off the aromatics you paid for.
The Yemeni harvests
View all 4
Yemeni Cave Honey
Mountain caves, Yemen
Wild-harvested, naturally rare
250g · 500g glass jar
Royal Yemeni Sidr Honey
Sidr groves, Yemen
A rare seasonal harvest
250g · 500g glass jar
Raw Yemeni Sidr Honey | Mountain Reserve
Highland Sidr groves, Hadhramaut, Yemen
The rarest harvest, from the high groves
35g · 250g · 500g glass jar
Raw Yemeni Sidr Honey | Valley Collection
Wadi Do'an, Hadhramaut, Yemen
Liquid gold from Yemen's fertile valleys
35g · 250g · 500g glass jar
Traceability
How a jar gets here
Single-origin means the chain is short enough to describe in full. This is every step between the grove and your kitchen.
- OriginA named valley, grove or forest, not a country, and not a blend of several.
- BeekeeperBought from the families who keep the hives there, by the harvest rather than by the tonne.
- HarvestTaken once a season, while that floral source is actually in flower. Nothing is fed or forced.
- In the jarStrained for wax, never heated or pasteurised, then sealed. Pollen and natural crystals stay in.
Independent batch testing is not part of this chain yet. When it is, it will appear here as its own step rather than as a claim on the label.
Not sure which of the two to start with?
The Valley Collection is the better first jar, it is the more approachable of the two and it is what most people mean when they say Sidr. The Mountain Reserve is worth it once you know you like the style.
Find your honey