Mellin is a small Greek honey producer based at Malandrino in Phocis, central Greece, run by Konstantinos Rellos, a third-generation beekeeper. The production and standardisation workshop was established in 2014, and the honey comes from a permanent apiary on Mount Giona in the Municipality of Delphi.

Where does the honey come from?

From one permanent apiary at around 1,000 metres at Rahes, on the lower slopes of Mount Giona, inside a Natura 2000 protected area. The thyme honey draws on the thyme fields above Galaxidi, closer to the Corinthian Gulf.

What honeys does Mellin make?

Three: organic fir honey, organic thyme honey, and organic fir with thyme. The last is a rarity, produced where the high fir forest and the wild thyme ground meet, and it is bottled in numbered jars in small annual runs.

Is the honey certified organic?

Yes. Mellin holds both EU and American organic certification, and the workshop at Malandrino runs an HACCP food safety system under a registered veterinary approval code.

What does it taste like?

The fir is dark and resinous, woody rather than simply sweet, with a long finish. The thyme is amber, aromatic and savoury, with the herbal note characteristic of Greek thyme honey. The fir with thyme moves between the two as it sits on the palate.

Mellin Rellos Greek Honey | Gourmet Groceries

Discover the Unparalleled Quality of Mellin

The permanent apiary sits at Rahes, at the foot of Mount Giona in the Municipality of Delphi, at around 1,000 metres inside a Natura 2000 protected area. Giona is the fifth-highest mountain in Greece and the highest anywhere south of Olympus, with its summit, Pyramida, at 2,510 metres. Its slopes carry dense Greek fir forest and, at lower levels toward the sea, open thyme ground.

Rellos keeps hive numbers deliberately low. The point is not volume but the ability to watch each colony individually, to harvest only frames that are properly ripe, and to handle the honey gently enough afterwards that its natural character survives the journey into the jar. Batches are small, and the limited editions are numbered.

What makes Mellin special

A permanent apiary at roughly 1,000 metres on Mount Giona, inside a Natura 2000 area.
Three honeys only: organic fir, organic thyme, and organic fir with thyme.
The fir with thyme is a genuine rarity, drawing on two forage zones that rarely overlap.
Certified organic under both EU and American standards, with HACCP applied at the Malandrino workshop.
Very low HMF, the standard laboratory marker for honey that has not been overheated or held too long.

Phocis is a compressed landscape. Within a short drive you pass from the Corinthian Gulf up through olive terraces and thyme scrub into fir forest and bare limestone. That vertical range is why one small beekeeping operation can produce two entirely different honeys, and why the third, the fir with thyme, exists at all.

VIEW PRODUCTS

The People Behind Mellin

Konstantinos Rellos is the third generation of his family to keep bees in this part of central Greece. His grandfather, Konstantinos Panagiopoulos, had hives in the wider Delphi area from 1953, and the family practice passed down from there. Rellos trained and worked as a civil engineer before returning to beekeeping full time.

That background shows in how the operation is run. The apiary is fixed rather than migratory, the workshop at Malandrino, Phocis is a registered and audited facility, and every batch is tracked. The ambition was never a large label. It was a very small number of honeys made to a standard that would stand up to independent judging.

How Mellin began

The hives came first, decades before the brand. What changed in 2014 was the decision to build a production and standardisation workshop and to bring the family’s honey to market under its own name, properly packaged and properly documented.

Organic certification followed the same logic. A fixed apiary inside a protected mountain area, with forage that is wild rather than cultivated, is well suited to organic beekeeping, but the certification still has to be earned and re-audited. Mellin now holds both EU and American organic approvals.

Harvesting on a single mountain

Most Greek beekeepers move their hives, following the flowering season from island thyme to mainland pine to mountain fir. Mellin does the opposite and stays put. The colonies remain on Giona, which means the honey reflects one mountain across one season rather than an itinerary.

The fir honey comes off the high forest, where the fir is surrounded by more than ninety wild herbs including mint, oregano and clover. The thyme honey comes from the thyme fields above Galaxidi, looking down on the Corinthian Gulf, where the bees also work almond, oak and around fifty other flowering plants. The fir with thyme, produced where the two zones meet, is bottled in numbered jars in runs of roughly a thousand.

Why this matters

A fixed apiary means the honey is traceable to one mountain and one season.
Low hive numbers allow each colony to be inspected and managed individually.
Forage is wild mountain flora inside a Natura 2000 area, not cultivated crop.
Gentle handling keeps HMF low and leaves the honey’s aromatic compounds intact.
Numbered limited editions make the size of each batch a matter of public record.

“Mellin is one family, one mountain and three honeys, made in quantities small enough that every jar can be numbered.”

A Daily Ritual from Delphi

Honey has been part of the ritual life of this landscape for as long as anything has been recorded here, and it remains an everyday food in Phocis rather than an occasional treat. A Mellin jar is meant to be opened and used, not admired on a shelf.

Organic fir, thyme, and fir with thyme, from Mount Giona and Galaxidi
Apiary at around 1,000 metres inside a Natura 2000 protected area
Numbered limited editions in small annual runs
Very low HMF, reflecting careful handling rather than heat treatment
A considered choice for anyone who reads a honey label the way they read a wine label

Fir honey is the quieter of the two, dark and resinous with a woodland edge rather than a straightforward sweetness. Thyme honey is the brighter one, amber and aromatic, with the savoury herbal note that Greek thyme honey is known for. The blend sits between them and changes as you taste it.

Mellin: What Sets a Single-Mountain Honey Apart

Two things separate a serious honey from an ordinary one: where the bees actually forage, and what happens between the frame and the jar. Mellin is unusually specific about both.

Benefit	Description
Single-origin forage	One permanent apiary at roughly 1,000 metres on Mount Giona, inside a Natura 2000 area, with wild mountain flora rather than cultivated crops.
Certified organic	Held under both EU and American organic standards, covering the apiary and the honey itself.
Very low HMF	Hydroxymethylfurfural rises when honey is heated or stored badly. A low reading is the clearest laboratory sign of gentle handling.
Laboratory studied	The organic fir honey has been the subject of academic analysis by researchers at the University of Thessaly, which is unusual for a producer working at this scale.

Crystallisation is worth mentioning here. Thyme honey will set over time and fir honey generally stays liquid far longer. Both behaviours are normal, and neither says anything about quality. A jar that has crystallised will loosen in a warm water bath well below any temperature that would damage it.

Daily Use in the Greek Kitchen

Greek cooking uses honey freely, and these three honeys are different enough that they suit different jobs. The fir is the one for cheese and coffee, the thyme for baking and for anything that wants a herbal lift.

Use	How to Enjoy
With yoghurt	Thick Greek yoghurt with fir honey and walnuts. The resinous, faintly woody notes come through clearly against the sourness.
With cheese	Thyme honey over fresh myzithra, manouri or a young graviera. A classic Greek pairing that works equally well with a hard sheep's cheese.
On the spoon	The traditional way to serve honey to a guest, alongside a glass of cold water and a Greek coffee. The fir with thyme is at its most articulate this way.
Over fruit	Warmed slightly and poured over figs, apricots or roasted stone fruit, with a little thick cream alongside.

Keep the jar in a cupboard rather than the fridge, away from direct sun, and use a dry spoon. Honey does not spoil, but heat and light will flatten its aroma over time.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Mellin

At Mellin, restraint is the operating principle. Hive numbers are kept low relative to the forage available, the apiary stays in one place year-round, and the honey is harvested only when the bees have finished ripening it. Colonies that are not moved from region to region are less stressed and easier to read.

The setting reinforces this. Working inside a Natura 2000 area on the slopes of Giona means the surrounding flora is protected habitat, and organic certification requires that it stays free of the inputs used in conventional agriculture. Small production is not a marketing position here so much as a condition of the method.

Their approach

A third-generation beekeeper who left civil engineering to take over hives his grandfather placed near Delphi in 1953 has built something narrow and precise: one permanent apiary at around 1,000 metres on Mount Giona inside a Natura 2000 area, a modest number of colonies watched individually, three honeys and no more, an HACCP-controlled workshop at Malandrino in Phocis, EU and American organic certification, very low HMF as the measure of gentle handling, and numbered jars so that the scale of each batch is stated rather than implied. The result has been recognised repeatedly by international judges, which for a producer of this size is a meaningful outcome.

Learn more about Mellin

VIEW PRODUCTS

Award-Winning Honey from Phocis

Mellin has been judged repeatedly by international panels. The organic fir with thyme took three stars at the Great Taste Awards in London in 2017, the top tier of that competition, having already been starred in 2015 and 2016. The organic thyme honey has also been starred at Great Taste, and the range has collected medals at Biolmiel, the Italian competition dedicated specifically to organic honeys, across several years. For an operation running a single apiary and bottling in numbered batches, that record is a straightforward reflection of how the honey is made.

VIEW PRODUCTS

Frequently Asked Questions About Mellin

What is Mellin?

Mellin is a small Greek honey producer based at Malandrino in Phocis, central Greece, run by Konstantinos Rellos, a third-generation beekeeper. The production and standardisation workshop was established in 2014, and the honey comes from a permanent apiary on Mount Giona in the Municipality of Delphi.
Where does the honey come from?

From one permanent apiary at around 1,000 metres at Rahes, on the lower slopes of Mount Giona, inside a Natura 2000 protected area. The thyme honey draws on the thyme fields above Galaxidi, closer to the Corinthian Gulf.
What honeys does Mellin make?

Three: organic fir honey, organic thyme honey, and organic fir with thyme. The last is a rarity, produced where the high fir forest and the wild thyme ground meet, and it is bottled in numbered jars in small annual runs.
Is the honey certified organic?

Yes. Mellin holds both EU and American organic certification, and the workshop at Malandrino runs an HACCP food safety system under a registered veterinary approval code.
What does it taste like?

The fir is dark and resinous, woody rather than simply sweet, with a long finish. The thyme is amber, aromatic and savoury, with the herbal note characteristic of Greek thyme honey. The fir with thyme moves between the two as it sits on the palate.

Explore the Mellin Collection

VIEW ALL

JOURNAL

Know What You’re Tasting

The Journal is where we go deeper into the stories and knowledge behind the collection, so you can understand what makes a product distinctive before it ever reaches the table.

It is a place to understand the details that matter, and the reasons a product earns its place with us.

View all

PREVIOUS NEXT

Mellin Rellos: Organic Fir and Thyme Honey from Fokida