Himalaya Honey, Rajpura, India (Punjab)

My friend Ben was deployed to Kuwait for a few months and brought me back this Himalaya honey that is produced by Apis India Ltd. He said he found it in a local supermarket. If the label is anything to go by, which is in English and Arabic, this Indian producer seems to have a strong presence in Middle Eastern markets.

Apis India Ltd honey Collection areas, from the Apis India, Ltd website

Apis India, Ltd has a lovely website. Their facilities and production standards are impressive! They produce a variety of honeys (rape, lychee, acacia, sunflower, eucalyptus, wild forest flower and Himalaya, to name a few) and have the capacity to process 100 tons of honey a day. They package in quantities of 25g to 300 kg. I'd like to see what 300 kgs of honey looks like (!) Even with these large quantities they pride themselves on upholding quality standards, with a laboratory in house and a strong quality assurance program. While they produce a lot of honey varieties, they state that they specialize in Himalaya honey.


I do not have a good spatial sense and this extends to being geographically challenged. I vaguely know where things are and know I should know where things are, but I don't always. Luckily I'm not proud and will happily look things up. The Himalayas, for instance. I know they are between India and Nepal but I was surprised to see how broad of a swath they cut across India. If you look at the map, the part of the Himalayas that my honey came from is on the bit just east of Pakistan.

Himalayas from the Himalayas Wiki site

The label says that the Himalaya honey I have is collected from "the floral sources of the vast range of the Himalayas in India," with all honey collected from flowers at a minimum height of 3000 ft. Looking online to see what kind of flowers grow in the Himalayas yields an embarrassment of riches. The better question might be, what doesn't grow in the Himalayas?! Well, to answer that you may need to peruse Adam Stainton's book Flowers of the Himalayas and at over 200 pages, it may take a while.

 In fact there is a valley, a national park called "Valley of Flowers" located in the province of Uttarkhand, India that covers 87 kilometers squared, that explodes with color between June and October. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and is a destination for people who want to combine hiking with an experience like no other. To get an idea of what it is like, read Trek to Valley of Flowers, a travel log by Thingnam Girija, N. Ulysses and Tabish, or peruse the many photos online of the area. In some cases the colors are so vivid it looks like they've been artificially colored.

Balsam in bloom from Trek to Valley of Flowers blog

The label of my honey does not give a clue as to what floral sources, if any, were major contributors to this honey and my guess is that with so many flowers intermingled with others,"wildflower mix" probably best describes it.

Himalaya honey, Apis India Ltd

It is a warm amber color, and quite thin with no particulate matter or crystals. It has good body and a flavor that builds. First it has a mellow sweetness with tones of molasses and then later menthol, finishing with a robust sweet last taste. It isn't what I expected. I thought it would be much lighter with more floral tones.  Overall, though, a good quality, somewhat complicated honey. Given its consistency it would be well suited for baking, on toast or in hot cereal. It may change the taste of a delicate tea too much, though. I'm not sure where you can get it, other than Kuwait. Given Apis India Ltd's large facility and distribution operation, it may be easier to find than you might think (and well worth it!).

Melkspruit Dairies Pure Honey, Ladybrand, South Africa

I was in Southern Africa for a short time recently and spent most of my time in Maseru, Lesotho. Maseru is on the boarder of South Africa. If you look at the map, Maseru is just south of the "E" in "Free State" across the border into Lesotho. For a change of pace, one Saturday I went to Ladybrand, a border town on the South African side for lunch (at Living Life- highly recommend it). A new acquaintance mentioned that the 'Milk store' near the Spar supermarket had fresh unpasteurized milk for sale. It is hard to get unpasteurized milk in the US because of milk regulations and I had never had unpasteurized milk, so on the way home I went to check it out.

Southern Africa

Countryside around Ladybrand, South Africa

The Milk Store is a store run by Melkspruit Dairies. As far as I can tell, Melkspruit Dairies is a farm near Teneriffe, in the Eastern Cape, a rural location on the border of Free State, where Ladybrand is. A search online suggests that Melkspruit is known for its elevation (4,380 feet above sea level), its periodic earthquakes, and its proclivity to drought.

In the store they have large, refrigerated stainless steel vats of milk. You can buy a plastic container, or bring your own, and fill it with fresh milk. I saw a few people come in with empty plastic liter soda bottles to fill. As soon as I was out of the store, I had a swig of my small plastic bottle. It is wonderful, creamy on the top, and oh so milky.  I can now see what all the fuss is about. It really is much more flavorful.

Southern African Landscape

Now apart from milk, cream, flavored milks, and cheese, they also have honey that they produce on the farm. It is called "Melkspruit Dairies Pure Honey." I get the feeling that South African diary farmers are a no-nonsense lot who call it like it is. I had been looking for locally produced honey and was having trouble finding any, so I was very happy to stumble on some in the milk store. The fellow manning the counter, a friendly fellow with a ready smile and a ruddy complexion, couldn't tell me much about it other than it was produced on the farm. From my limited experience of doing a few hikes and driving in the area, the terrain is mostly low brush and scrub with some herbs, grasses and eucalyptus. Crops are mostly maize and sorghum, but I did see a few sunflower fields.

The honey was runny when I first got it, but it has since crystallized, so it is a pretty fast crystallizer. It is now an opaque, deep yellow color with specks of pollen and other fragments in it. It resembles lemon curb but with a deeper yellow color, almost the color of egg yolks. It is now a solid mass of medium sized crystals with a slightly floral beginning taste, that is then overpowered by the fresh, spicy taste of menthol. The menthol is undoubtedly from a eucalyptus source. It is a very good, high quality, unprocessed honey.

Melkspruit Dairies Pure Honey

Sage Honey from Split, Croatia - a guest post by Elizabeth Gowing, author of 'The Little Book of Honey'

All the signs are that this is somewhere that I'll find excellent honey. I'm in Split, on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, for a spring holiday. The city is ancient, grown up around and within the crumbling palace of Roman Emperor Diocletian. It sits between mountains and sea - a great place for trade in foodstuffs.

Since becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo six years ago (you can read the story of my adventures in my book, Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo, published by Signal Books in 2011) I've become aware of the ways that landscapes produce distinctive honeys; that to lick at a honey is like sipping at a wine and tasting the land which gave it birth, the climate which nurtured it, the people and their technologies who produced it.

For two years I researched honeys from around the world for my second book, The Little Book of Honey (www.thelittlebookofhoney.co.uk) which includes tasting notes and the stories behind extraordinary honeys (ivy honey, avocado honey, the honey fighting poverty in Nigeria, the honey which helps excluded youth in inner-city London) as well as my favourite honey recipes from every continent (Russian sbiten honey drink, honey vinaigrette, Yemeni honey bread, honey ice-cream and more). So when, like Split in Croatia on this spring weekend, I come to a settlement that's new to me, I guide myself round the town on a hunt for honey.

Here it takes me to some great places - through the fish market, gleaming and glistening with the slippery and the scaly, and through the fruit and vegetable market where women sit at stalls offering small green bundles of fresh herbs and kitchen garden produce including samphire which I buy for the first time - perfect to eat with the fish. I'm getting closer now, surely. I see the flower market and know that a country with such profusion in its meadows, such fragile wild cyclamens held up in the enormous fists of the traders, will have wonderful honey.

Then there it is in front of me - a profusion of stalls selling honeys I've never heard of, along with some familiar delicious tastes. I see acacia and chestnut and lime flower, woodland honey and meadow honey. I've never tried sage honey before so I buy a pot of that, as well as a small phial of propolis to keep in my handbag for cuts and ulcers; nature's antiseptic.

When I get home, winding through the limestone streets, the arches and alleyways, with washing blooming by every window box, I sit down to savour the sage honey. It's a clear liquid honey, the colour of the wooden shutters at the windows of the houses here. The aroma is malty and musky, with a faint tang of medicine reminding of its herbal origins. The taste is quite different - caramel and orange blossom with an aftertaste that's almost mocha. Today I drizzle it in yoghurt though I think it would also be an excellent honey to use in baking.

I've tried the delicious Croatian pepper cookies, paprenjaci, and the recipe I've found online tells me they are traditionally made with honey. So maybe my next exploration of Croatia is to recreate my springtime trip in my kitchen back home using some of this extraordinary local sage honey.

Thaba Bosui honey, Lesotho, Southern Africa

I’m in Maseru, Lesotho for a few weeks doing a short term project and thought I’d take advantage of being in a new and wonderful place, and try to scout out some local honey. But before I get into that I want to give you a little background on Lesotho (or rather, The Kingdom of Lesotho). Most people that I talked to about my trip didn’t know where it was. To tell the truth, I had to pull out a map the first time I heard of it too.

Lesotho is a small, mountainous country completely surrounded by South Africa. If you look for South Africa on the map, you’ll see a circular country southeast of Johannesburg. That is Lesotho. If you pay attention to the markings on the map that show mountains you’ll see that Lesotho is just full of lots of mountains. The so-called “low lands” which border South Africa all around its edge are not very low at all, at about 1,000 to 1,600 meters above sea level. In fact, Lesotho is unique in that it is the only country entirely above 1,000 m, and is known as the ‘Kingdom in the Sky.’ Does it live up to being in the sky? 

You bet. 

Fascinating clouds at sunset in Maseru, Lesotho

I could do nothing but look at the sky all day while I’m here. It seems so close. I’ve never been to Montana (the big sky state) but I wonder if the sky there is as mesmerizing. In Lesotho the air is crisp and clear, the clouds take on the most unusual shapes from billowing puffs to sheets of feathery wisps- and they have such depth and expanse. Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular. The views from elevated spaces defy words. Magical does not begin to describe this place.

 However, before I arrived, given all the mountains on the map, I thought Lesotho would be like Switzerland, with needle sharp mountain ranges, and up and down and around driving on roads hugging the edges of cliffs. 

Sheets of clouds over a mountain at sunset in Maseru, Lesotho

Well, Switzerland without all the very cold, very snowy bits (although Lesotho does get snow in winter especially at the highest elevations) or lederhosen. I’ve since discovered that it isn’t like Switzerland at all. The mountains, at least in the low lands, seem old and weathered, with large flat plateaus on their tops, and they dot large valleys of flat lands where people grow maize, and sorghum (among other things).  For being so high up and having so many mountains there is A LOT of flat space. If you are in a valley looking at the mountains, they seem to come in ones and twos rather than as a range. However, I’ve not been in the interior, where the higher mountains are, so it may be different there.  

There are also A LOT of rivers (and dams) here, and water is an important export to South Africa. It is the end of summer, and there has been a drought for the last two years (although I hear from locals that this year has been much better for water). Many of the river beds are dry- and these are called dongas (not sure of the spelling). 

Puffy white clouds you can almost touch at Thaba Bosiu, Lesotho

These dry (or nearly dry) river beds carve deep cuts into the earth though, making it easy to imagine how much water they hold when the spring thaw comes.

But back to honey. It is my first time in sub-Saharan Africa and I was very excited to see what the local honey scene is. Imagine how disappointed I was when Me Zinnia, the owner of the house I’m staying at, told me that there is no local honey scene. Any honey produced, she said, is generally consumed by the family and not for sale, or is imported from South Africa. The Pick and Pay supermarket seemed to confirm this as they only have honey from South Africa (and seemingly mass produced at that). But I wondered if local honey was more likely to be sold in a local market than in a supermarket (hope springs eternal). I checked out the open market where small stalls sell everything from sandals to fruit and didn’t see any either. Not good. Not good at all. But just when I thought I’d cross the border into South Africa to get local (and not mass produced) South African honey (the next best thing to Lesotho honey), my luck changed.  

It changed as I was hiking Thaba Bosiu (the night mountain, so named because it seemed to grow in the night to those who tried to climb it then- at least that is one story; the other is that King Moshoeshoe and his people arrived at the flat mountaintop at night). 

Views from the plateau at Thaba Bosiu looking at the mountains in the interior.

But before I go on about the honey find I want to insert a little bit about Thaba Bosiu. It is spectacular and has an important place in Lesotho history. It can only be reached from a handful of passes that are easily defended (think rocky walking paths where you have to go one by one). On top there is a massive plateau where you have commanding views of all the valleys around it, and a natural spring feeds it. Moshoeshoe gathered his people on Thaba Bosiu and from this defensible mountaintop established relationships with chiefs throughout the country (mostly by marrying their daughters- 140 in total) thereby creating an extended political network, and ultimately uniting the country under one ruler, King Moshoeshoe I. 

View from Thaba Bosiu looking into the valley below.

This all happened in the 1820s. For more information, I recommend David Fleminger book “Lesotho Southbound Travel Guide.” On the hike you can drink water from the spring, visit King Moshoeshoe I (and II) graves (many Lesotho royalty are buried there), and see King Moshoeshoe I’s house. You can also be completely overwhelmed by the views. If you are near Maseru, it is a quick day trip to Thaba Bosiu and I highly recommend it.

But back to the honey. While I was hiking I noticed honey bees and asked our guide, a local man, about (what else) honey. He informed me that there was local honey production, in fact it was very local. 

Ntate Maccae's bee hives

After the hike he directed me to Ntate Maccae, an apiarist who was a stone’s throw away. After getting lost just a little and asking directions to Ntate Maccae’s house from a teenager looking after a small child (my friends and I speak next to no Sesotho and we were very lucky that she understood me), we found Ntate Maccae’s house and met his wife. Yes, they produced honey and yes, we could buy some. It came in a plastic honey jar with a yellow lid with no label. She said the two jars we bought were her last but her husband was out harvesting more and if we brought our own container they could fill it later on. I instantly thought of the 1 liter plastic bottle I had in my room… With luck we will make it back to Ntate Maccae’s before I leave for home.

The honey is a mellow, orange yellow color, clear in a small sample, but somewhat cloudy in the jar. It is a runny honey but medium runny- I could swirl some on a toothpick without too much effort. It has honey sweet first taste that is not complex, and then an herby, slightly medicinal taste (sweet not bitter) at the end. I liken it to a eucalyptus taste. 

Ntate Maccae's honey.

Very tasty and very different from other honeys I’ve had from Africa. My guess is that the floral sources are low growing shrubs and herbs (there are few trees in the area with the exception of some eucalyptus and a few others). On the hike I noticed a flowering herb (yellow flowers) that resembled sage to me but the leaves were much smaller- perhaps it was one of the sources.

I’m afraid you won’t be able to get this honey online or at the store. You’ll just have to come to Lesotho to pick some up. Directions to Ntate Maccae’s can be obtained from the guide at the visitor center of Thaba Bosui. What other excuse do you need to visit the Kingdom in the sky?

Arizona Rangeland Honey, Tucson, Arizona

I got this Arizona Rangeland Honey from my friend Louise. It is distributed by Golden Rule Honey, a company run by Laurie and Dean out of Leominster, MA. They are beekeepers on a mission to educate about bees and beekeeping, and they advocate for treatment-free beekeeping and honey. Treatment-free bees are not treated with chemicals, organic acids, essential oils or sugar dusting, medicated with antibiotics, or fed with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, pollen substitutes or artificial foods. They've written a book, called "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping," which you can buy on their website if you'd like to learn more about treatment-free beekeeping and why they are so passionate about going treatment-free.

Needless to say, all honeys distributed by Golden Rule Honey are from treatment-free beekeeping producers, and my Arizona Rangelenad Honey is no different. It is the product of Dee Lusby's bees who forage in remote, open desert rangeland in southern Arizona.

Arizona Rangeland

Dee Lusby is also an active and vocal advocate for treetment-free beekeeping. In her quest to support healthy and productive bees using non-chemical methods she, along with her partner Ed, an experienced and fourth-generation beekeeper, identified that comb cell diameter may play an important role in keeping disease and mite problems in check. They examined the role of natural cell diameter on colony vigor for Southern Arizona and identified an optimal cell diameter for their region. The ResistantBees.com website has more information on Dee Lusby's work. They now use this optimal natural cell diameter for their bee colonies and claim that it resulted in a significant reduction of disease and mite infestation, while increasing colony productivity. The Lusbys are now expanding their work to identify optimal natural cell diameters for all latitudes.


But back to my rangeland honey. I'm a city girl and was not too sure what "rangeland" is- so I looked it up. In a nutshell, rangelands are lands that, for a variety of reasons (topography, aridness, soil type, etc.) are not suitable for cultivation but provide forage for grazing animals. Think of the open desert spaces where ranchers move their herds through in westerns and I think you have the right idea.

Examples of wild desert flowers

If, however, you think desert means desolate, you'd be wrong. Many wildflowers are native to this environment- and these are the source of rangeland honey. Because these blossoms vary by season and local conditions, each batch of rangeland honey is unique.  

My rangeland honey has already crystallized, which isn't surprising since it has the reputation of being a fast crystallizer. It is a mellow, cloudy, pale yellow color. Even though it looks like it is solidly crystallized, it is in fact, still very liquid, albeit thick, with crunchy granules of varying size.

Arizona Rangeland Honey

The granular texture is unique and gives off burst of sweetness as the granules dissolve. I've read that this honey has a buttery, caramel undertone, but I would describe it more as a subtle taste of green tea, with a final, fleeting, hint of smoke. The layered flavors are delicate. The robust flavor is of crunchy honey sweetness. Given that the texture of this honey is so unique, and the texture would be lost in a hot beverage or in baking, I think this honey is best eaten right out of the jar, or on hot buttered toast.

Nature's Country Gold Manuka Honey, Hamilton, New Zealand

Manuka flowers

If you are into honey you've probably heard of Manuka honey: That it is from New Zealand and Australia; That it has health benefits including antibacterial properties, and That it is a rich, dark honey with an earthy taste. All true, as far as I can tell. But what exactly is Manuka?

To begin with it is pronounced "May new ka," (Mānuka) and it is a shrub/small tree (described as a scrub-type tree) that grows to 2-5 meters tall, but can grow taller. It is evergreen with dense branches, small prickly leaves and white (and sometimes pink) flowers. Its scientific name is Leptospermum scoparium, but it is also known as manuka myrtle, New Zealand teatree or just tea tree. 

Of note, there is another scrub-type bush, the Kanuka (Kānuka, Kunzea ericoides), that closely resembles Manuka and grows in the same areas. It has soft leaves, however, and produces a pale honey (that, unfortunately does not have the level of antibacterial qualities of Manuka). To verify that Manuka honey is Manuka honey (with all of those medicinal qualities), laboratory testing is done. To be labelled Manuka honey, at least 70% of its source must be pollen from Leptospermum scoparium.

Manuka shrub

 So what are the medicinal qualities of Manuka honey? Well, apparently all honeys have mild antiseptic properties because they all contain hydrogen peroxide (news to me!), but Manuka honey has additional antibacterial  properties (referred to as non-peroxide effects). In 1996 TradeNZ, in conjuncion with the Honey Research Unit (yes there is one!), established a standard for the classification of antibacterial honey activity, the UMF  (Unique Manuka Factor) industry standard. Within different batches of Manuka honey there can be 100-fold differences in non-peroxide effects activity. The UMF rating tests the antibacterial performance of honey and compares it to a phenol standard (a disinfectant). A UMF rating of 10 (equivalent to a 10% solution of phenol) is the minimum activity needed to get a UMF rating and this honey is called "Active Manuka Honey." Beware of "Active Manuka Honey" that does not have a rating- it may not be as active as you think. Active Manuka honey is effective in topically treating skin ailments, including dressing wounds and treating boils, burns, and cuts (something the native Maoris have always used Manuka honey for, apparently). It has also been reported to be effective in topically treating fungal skin conditions (particularly where that is a bacterial infection associated).

Apart from the UMF ratings there are the MGO ratings, which tests the level of methylglyoxal, the active ingredient responsible for the anti-bacterial properties of Manuka honey. The higher the MGO rating, the higher the level of anti-bacterial activity. 

Manuka Assam tea blend

According to one wiki listing for Manuka, the bush was called 'tea tree' because Captain Cook used its leaves to make tea. Its leaves are still used to make tea today and you can order Manuka tea online (just google Manuka tea). Its taste is reported to be similar to Rooibos (red bush) tea.

Of interest, native parakeets ingest Manuka leaves and bark, as well as apply leaves and bark mixed with preen gland oils to their feathers to combat parasites, and Manuka sawdust is used to smoke fish and meats to give them an unusual flavor. 

My Manuka honey (which comes courtesy of friends Robert and Monique who were visiting New Zealand recently) is produced by Nature's Country Gold out of Hamilton, New Zealand. Nature's Country Gold is a family affair started in 2005 (starting with 120 hives and now expanded to 1200) by Adrian and Lania Pohio. They collect and distribute Manuka, Rewarewa, Wild Flora, and Coastal Farmland honey (see their lovely website for more information). In addition, their son, Hayden, created Boosta energy bars, using their honey. 

Nature's Country Gold Manuka Honey

The non-peroxide UMF activity level of my honey is 5+, not high enough to make it worthwhile to slather on a burn, but with a little added anti-bacterial omph that might sooth a sore throat. 






Although it looks dark from the jar it is a bit deceptive because the jar is a dark brown. It is, in fact, a rich caramel color, very creamy and thick, coming off in sheets. I can easily get a huge swirl on a toothpick. In fact I broke a few toothpicks because it was so thick! It takes a second or two to melt, as do creamy honeys, and it is a little gummy as it melts. It isn't too sweet and has a mild  molasses flavor ending with a subtle molasses and eucalyptus (a little hint of menthol) presence at the end. Definitely too tasty to put on a wound (!) but would be lovely in hot tea or milk (to sooth a sore throat). In fact, it would be lovely on buttered toast as well as anywhere else you might like honey with a distinct flavor. 

Wilde Huajilla Honey, Montgomery, Texas

Huajilla honey (Wa-Hee-Ya) if from a wild shrub that grows exclusively in south Texas and northern Mexico. The Reed Family Ranch, which was established in 1897 and is a working cattle ranch (dotted with bee hives), is the source of the Huajilla honey that I have. It comes to me courtesy of Texas friends Robert and Monique. 

Flowering Huajilla Shrub

 
The Reed Family (http://www.beewilde.com/home1.html) offer a variety of raw, minimally processed, unfiltered and upasteurzied honeys under the name "Bee Wilde Honey" as well as beeswax candles and bees (if you want to start a hive of your own). Wendy and Kenny Reed, who run the operation, do it all: produce, package, and distribute, and they are passionate about what they do. "Bee Wilde, Stay Wilde" is their philosophy of bees and honey. They know their land, know their bees and take great pride in the quality of the honey they produce. To see what honey is currently available, check out the link to their website. 

The Huajilla shrub is a wild shrub that grows to 2-10 feet tall.  It is a member of the acacia family. It has fern-like leaves made up of 5-9 pairs of pinnae and 30-50 pairs of leaflets and packs some ferocious spines. Its flowers are white and resemble mimosas. It blooms in the spring and does best in dry, drought like conditions. Lucky for us, this past year has been a dry one for Southern Texas and the Huajilla honey harvest has been a good one.

 

Wild Huajilla Honey

Huajilla honey is white or very light amber. My honey is a clear watery lemonade color. When I twirl it on a toothpick, it has very little color at all, just a hint of yellow. It is a relatively thick honey and granulates quickly. In face, I can already see the granules starting in mine, and I know it was harvested relatively recently. It has a thick texture, but it isn't creamy. It is viscous with granules that melt quickly. It has a delicate, simple flavor with a clear sweetness and a subtle hint of something floral. Given its texture, it is a good choice as a spreading honey. Given its clear taste with no overpowering flavors, it is also a good choice for teas.

 



  
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