honey honey

Since I discontinued my use of dairy milk in tea (one of my best decisions ever!) I've become something of an amateur connoisseur of honey. I basically only use it at home and I only use honey from small beekeepers. Because like everything in this world I shy large scale production which always see the animals involved as production units and things rather than living beings with their own life value.

Last year I even visited a small scale beekeeper and learnt more about the production and the short life-span of the busy bees. Honey is indeed a precious product, with many lives involved. One tea-spoon actually equals one bee-life. Fascinating and rather sad I'd say.

In my neighbourhood there seem to be quite a number of small scale beekeepers, mostly they have the beehives at their country cottages it seems, so it's fairly easy to buy local honey. Although I've also come to learn that not all honey tastes good. The different tangs of course come from respective bees environment and plants. So whenever you open a new honey jar it's fingers and tastebuds crossed for a nice flavour.

In the case of the jars in the pictures, well above jars from two different beekeepers both taste lovely. The below three jars from the same beekeeper not so much. So I'm glad I have a honey-addicted mother who isn't nearly as finicky discerning as I am.