Shafia

Shafia is a honey label offering multiflora honey, the style made when bees forage across many flowers in one area. Multiflora is the everyday honey of many South Asian homes, chosen for its balanced flavour and the way it suits both sweet and savoury cooking.

We stock Shafia in our honey collection, part of the breakfast and spreads department. Multiflora sits between the delicate single flower honeys, such as acacia, and the darker, stronger ones, such as forest honey, in both colour and strength, which makes it a sensible all purpose jar.

Drizzle it over toast, pancakes and Greek yoghurt, or stir it into a mug of warm milk with a pinch of turmeric for haldi doodh at bedtime. It sweetens lemon and ginger tea, kahwa and lassi, and it glazes chicken tikka or roasted root vegetables in the last few minutes in the oven. Bakers use it in honey cake and in place of some of the sugar in flapjacks for a softer bite. Add honey to hot drinks once they have cooled slightly, so its flavour stays bright.

Keep the jar closed at room temperature in a cupboard; honey that turns grainy has simply crystallised, and a bowl of warm water returns it to a smooth pour. To compare honeys, see the set honey from Rowse and our kithul and coconut treacle.