Honey costs £55 a jar

It looks good, apparently tastes great and is said to ease all sorts of ailments. The only sticky issue is the price: estimated at £5 a teaspoon.

At £55 a small pot, few people will be smearing Tregothnan manuka honey liberally on their breakfast toast any day soon.

But the Tregothnan estate in Cornwall, which already does well selling tea grown on its warm, dampish slopes, is confident the honey will find its niche among aficionados of all things sweet.



The company claims the price tag is justified as its bees are housed in 20 special hives worth £5,000 each and have the exclusive run (or flight) of the garden's manuka bushes, normally found in New Zealand or Australia.

Tregothnan's garden director, Jonathan Jones, said: "The honey is expensive, but it is Britain's only manuka honey. It has become a lifestyle product, a luxury. This year is the first time the plants produced nectar which gave us our first jars, around 100."

Jones said the first consignment was sold through Harvey Nichols in London. "They were sold to women of a certain age who are very health conscious, but recently we have been getting much wider interest."