The oil, not the honey.

How We Test

Manuka oil and manuka honey are different products with different measurements. We distil the leaf and branch, and we publish the number that actually applies to oil.

Scoparium New Zealand Shrub

Triketones The Oil's Own Metric

Distilled Here Branch To Bottle

2 yr Off-Still Date Shown

Manuka Oil Is Not Manuka Honey

Almost everything people know about manuka comes from the honey, and almost none of it transfers.

The honey is graded on a compound formed in nectar. The oil is a steam distillate of leaf and branch, and what matters in it is a group of beta-triketones that the honey grading says nothing about. Sellers borrow the honey's fame and its numbers, and the two do not connect.

So we do the unglamorous thing: distil the plant material ourselves, have the triketone fraction measured by an independent laboratory, and quote that instead of gesturing at a jar of honey.

Graded On Its Own Terms

Every batch is analysed by an independent third-party laboratory, and the triketone fraction is the headline.

Beta-triketones

Leptospermone and its relatives. This is the manuka oil metric, entirely separate from any honey grading.

Sesquiterpenes

The heavy fraction behind the earthy, grounding depth that distinguishes manuka from tea tree.

Species and purity

Confirms scoparium at full strength, with no tea tree blended in to stretch a scarce oil.

Ask us for the triketone figure against your lot and we will send it. The contact page works as well.

📄 Certificate of Analysis

Leafy Branches Off the Hillsides

Leptospermum scoparium is a tough shrub that covers New Zealand hillsides, closely related to tea tree but a very different oil.

We take the leafy branches. Cutting the whole leafy tip rather than stripping leaf alone is how this material has always been gathered, and the plant regrows readily from it.

East Cape material carries the reputation, and Maori tradition has long held the plant in regard. Both facts belong to the plant rather than to any particular bottle, which is why we still measure every batch.

Manuka shrub with fine foliage and small white flowers on a New Zealand hillside

Cut manuka branches loaded into a still with steam rising

Ours From the Hillside Onward

There is no finished oil coming in the door here. We buy cut branches and everything after that is our work.

The packed material is steamed until spent and the oil separates dark and heavy, smelling earthy and honeyed with a spiced warmth far deeper than Australian tea tree.

As always, the run ends with the plant material rather than with a clock, so there is no hour figure to advertise.

⌛

Two Dates Recorded

Stilling day and filling day both appear, joined by a lot reference.

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Amber Glass

Amber in all sizes, protecting a dark, heavy oil from light.

∅

No Tea Tree

Pure Leptospermum scoparium, undiluted, never cut with its Australian cousin.

Where We Stop Talking

No medical claims from us. Manuka has real traditional standing and a genuine research literature, and neither of those is a promise we are entitled to make.

Take it right down in a base oil first, then trial one small spot of skin. It is a heavy, tenacious oil and a very small quantity goes a long way in a blend.

A batch whose triketone fraction falls short simply stays in the drum, and the shelf goes empty until the next one. Selling manuka on reputation alone is not something we are willing to do.

Our Position On Manuka

Six things that hold for every batch of this oil.

✿

Leafy Branch Cut

Whole leafy tips harvested as they always have been, allowing regrowth.

☘

Organic, Bought Direct

Bulk purchase from New Zealand growers we deal with ourselves.

⚙

Our Distillation

From cut branch through to a sealed bottle, entirely on our own equipment.

⚖

Triketones Measured

Independent analysis on the fraction that actually grades an oil.

✓

No Honey Borrowing

We do not quote honey grades on an oil label. They measure different things.

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Any Volume

From a sample bottle to bulk, every size off one run.

Judge It On Its Own Number

New Zealand leafy branch, stilled on our own premises, its beta-triketone fraction put on paper by an outside laboratory and quoted whenever you ask.

Ask for the figure first.

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