Most visitors leave Aegina with bags full of pistachios and forget entirely that the island produces honey of comparable quality. The hives sit in the scrubland of the interior, where thyme and wild sage flower from spring through early summer, and the bees work terrain that has never been subjected to intensive agriculture. The result is a dark, strongly aromatic honey with a slightly herbal bitterness underneath the sweetness — quite different from the mild commercial varieties sold in supermarkets back home.
Thyme honey from the Greek islands has been prized since antiquity. Ancient writers praised Hymettus honey from Attica, but the Saronic islands produced their own versions that fed local populations for centuries. On Aegina, small-scale beekeeping has persisted precisely because the island's rocky hillsides and scrub vegetation are better suited to bees than to most other forms of farming. The same landscape that makes parts of the interior look rather austere is exactly what makes the honey exceptional.
You will find local honey sold at the Saturday morning market in Aegina town, at a few specialist shops near the port, and sometimes directly from producers if you drive into the hills and spot a handmade sign. Prices are higher than for supermarket honey but not dramatically so, and a single jar holds enough to remind you of the island long after you have gone home. Ask specifically for thyme honey — there is also pine honey produced on the island, which has a distinct resinous flavour that some people love and others find too intense.
The best way to eat Aegina honey is simply spooned over thick Greek yoghurt with a handful of roughly chopped walnuts or pistachios. Every breakfast place on the island offers some version of this, and after your first encounter with it, you may find the packaged options back home feel faintly disappointing.