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Honey Merchant

Honey Merchant

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WELCOME TO
HONEY MERCHANT

Hi! I’m Jess, a proud Beekeeper and Honey Sommelier.

Honey Merchant is a community of beekeepers and honey aficionados alike. We’re all driven by a desire to help even more people fall in love with the flavours of Australian honey while stopping to taste the journeys our bees have been on along the way.

As a Honey Sommelier, I’m dedicated to developing an appreciation and love for our local honey flavours with my fellow Australians through honey tasting, pairing and education.

Contact Jess


BLOG


  • Honey Tasting and Beekeeping
  • Honey Spotlight: Farmhouse Mallee
  • Autumn 2021 Honey Tasting Season
  • Baby Bee
  • Aussie’s Favourite Honey
  • Honey Colour
  • Hot Honey Pizza

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IN THE NEWS


AUSTRALIAN HONEY
SOMMELIER

After completing my sensory analysis training in the USA, I returned to Australia with an even deeper curiosity and love for the complex flavours of Australian honey.

Australian beekeepers work their magic in a land of extremes filled with challenges like fire, flood and drought while being surrounded by some of the most diverse landscapes and flora on the planet. All this is reflected in the unique and varied flavours of our honey.


INSTAGRAM


Happy World Bee Day from Melbourne. Thank you to M Happy World Bee Day from Melbourne. Thank you to Mary, Henry and the amazing team at @backyardhoney for inviting me to their celebrations. A special thank you for my personalised honey jar!! That one's going straight to the pool room! 🥰🍯
#honey #australianhoney #honeysommelier #australianbeekeeping #australianhoney
Have you ever wondered what honey tasting is all a Have you ever wondered what honey tasting is all about?
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Are you curious to find out how to get started?
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Looking for something to do this Wednesday?
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Then join me at 7:30pm AEST April 20th online for a free Hive Buddy event. I'll walk you through honey tasting basics. You'll even get a chance to taste your own honey and put your new skills into practice.
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See you online Wednesday! Register with Hive Buddy using the link below if you're keen to join me. 
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Visit hivebuddy.com.au and find my event link or use the direct link below.

https://hivebuddy.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ode6tqTMoHtAwM-5EdNRCUlkWnClwkKlx
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#honey
#onlineevent
#australianhoney
#freeevent
#australianhoneysommelier
#honeytasting
#australianhoney
#foodpairing
#bees
#beekeeper
#australianbeekeeper
#foodie
#sommelier
#melbournefoodie
#sydneyfoodie 
#foodblogger 
#australianfoodblogger 
#melbournefoodblogger
Surely no one ever gets sick of looking at honey? Surely no one ever gets sick of looking at honey? This week I'm doing my advanced training with the experts in Bologna.
Honey tasting afternoon tea at @hiveselfridges in Honey tasting afternoon tea at @hiveselfridges in London. The perfect way to kick off a European honey tasting tour. 🍯
After being postponed several times because of COV After being postponed several times because of COVID, the Mould Festival 🧀🧀 finally came to town, and it was well worth the wait. I've stocked up on some incredible Australian cheeses to pair with my honey 🍯🍯collection.

Thank you @mouldcheese for an inspiring festival!
Close your eyes and imagine beach cottages and bac Close your eyes and imagine beach cottages and backyard swimming pools in the southern Australian spring. Warm, salty air and (more often than not) creeping masses of a hardy succulent called Pigface spreading out over the sand.

Pigface isn't a single-origin honey that's readily available to buy, so I'm extremely fortunate to have been sent a sample. It's also one of our more unusual tasting honeys, which is probably a reason you don't see it grace our shelves very often.

It's one of the more bitter honeys I've tried. A sharp, distinctive flavour that has a strong, almost numbing persistence in your mouth.

The flavour tastes like quinine, chicory and biting into raw plant stems or grapefruit peel. It's less overpowering than the Italian Strawberry Tree (Arbutus) honey, but still one you will want to prepare yourself for before trying.

The sharp, green vegetal / chemical taste is a contrast to the smell. It has a very savoury, animal, almost 'gym bag' or raw bread dough smell with leather and slight metallic notes.

This was sent by a friend who has an apiary on Kangaroo Island. The island was decimated by fires in recent years. As a result,  the bees from her apiary were forced to forage on plants they may have normally overlooked. The result is small batches of some rarer Australian honeys while the landscape regenerates.

We know terroir plays an important part in the flavour of honey. Honey tells the story of the journey bees have taken, and also the environment around their hives. Another reason to look after our unique and complex landscape. Happy, healthy plant life = happy, healthy bees. 
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#honey #honeytasting #australianhoney #bees #beekeeping #honeysommelier #australianhoneysommelier #australianbees #australianbeekeeping #foodie #melbournefoodie #australianproduce #tasting #flavour #kangarooisland #kangarooislandhoney #southaustralianhoney #southaustralianproduce #kangarooislandbees #honeymerchant
Tonight's Hot Toddy recipe = Leatherwood honey, fr Tonight's Hot Toddy recipe = Leatherwood honey, fresh lemon juice, whiskey, water and cinnamon warmed up slowly and served with a cinnamon stick and fresh lemon.

Lockdown number 5, one of our coldest nights of the year and this is exactly what we needed

Leatherwood honey is the perfect choice for a Hot Toddy. Its heady aromatics match the whiskey's strength and avoids getting overpowered by the other gutsy flavours. 
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#honeysommelier #honeysommelieraustralia #honey #hottoddy #whiskey #winter #cocktail #australianhoney #beekeeper
NO FILTER! 💛 Blue skies filled with the brighte NO FILTER! 💛 Blue skies filled with the brightest yellow wattle flowers and the hum of bees greeted me when I stepped outside this morning. Mid winter in Melbourne is still cold, but the signs that nature is getting ready for spring are starting to show. 

Wattle is one of my (and my bees) favourite flowers. It's not a nectar rich blossom, but definitely a big pollen producer. So much so that my car parked under it was covered in a light dusting of what looked like cheesy Cheeto powder. For anyone in the UK, yes, wattle is the Aussie name for the mimosa plant you have over there.

Both pollen and nectar are important to a bee's diet. Nectar is transformed into honey, and pollen is turned into a bee bread which is used to feed their young. Bees pack the pollen into cells mixed with saliva and sealed with a little honey and store it until it's ready to use. 
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#bees #beekeeping #honeysommelier #australianagriculture #australianhoney #pollen #beebread #honey
Crystals in honey! 🍯👀 It's one of the many Crystals in honey! 🍯👀

It's one of the many things that I love about honey tasting. It adds another textural dimension to cheese pairing, and can alter the sensory description of a honey in terms of colour, visual and of course texture. 

It's also one of the most misunderstood characteristics of honey with the wider general public. It's disheartening to hear customers who think crystallised honey is spoiled, or bad, when in actual fact, it's a sign you've got your hands on some of the good stuff!

Crystallisation is a natural process to be embraced. If, in this form, it's not to your taste, that's OK too. Nothing that a slow soak in a warm bath on the stove won't fix to relax it back to it's more youthful state. That's the honey, not you of course. 😉

A special shout out to Ryan at @hartshorndistillery for making not only my favourite vodka, but my new favourite glasses for honey evaluations. 🥰🍯🥃

Also to the lovely people at @worksmith.io
It's a pleasure to join your community! 🤩🎉
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#honeysommelier #honeysommelieraustralia #honey #bees #beekeeping #sommelier
I recently bought a wheel of @taragorivercheese Sh I recently bought a wheel of @taragorivercheese Shadows of Blue from the lovely people at @cheesetherapy to get me through the cold, dark winter months. Perfect for long nights in front of the fire with wine and honey. 

I decided to get a little poetic with the honey pairing for this cheese. These cows graze in the beautiful Gippsland hills here in Victoria. A good friend of mine; Caroline from @comeflywithmebeekeeping keeps her hives in Gippsland too, and I could easily imagine the bees flying around the brambles next to the paddocks where these cows graze.

Caroline's blackberry honey has been stored for about a year and has crystallised naturally with smooth, tiny crystals that dissolve in your mouth as soon as you taste it. I also found a Tasmanian blackberry honey in my collection from @bluehillshoney that I decided should join the pairing. Crystallised honey is an even better pairing with a gooey blue brie like this one. I love playing around with texture with pairings. The Tasmanian honey had larger, almost chewy crystals that was a great play on texture with the cheese.

Both honeys had all the tell-tale characteristics of a blackberry honey. A warm, vegetal odour like dry blackberry leaves and fresh cut flower stems. A delicate, warm cassis flavour like soft, fresh berries. Both left a creamy mouth feel. Carolines honey had more jam flavour top notes coming through, while the Tasmanian honey had a delicate raw green vegetal top notes. 

Unlike the cows that made the cheese, bees aren't restricted by paddock borders when they forage. As a result, it's not uncommon to notice slight variations in the characteristics of honey with the same floral source.

This pairing was a winner. The crystals and smooth, fresh fruitiness wasn't overpowered by the cheese. The honey balanced the gooey saltiness perfectly. I'll be matching these two together in the future for sure.
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#honeysommelier #honey #cheese #australianhoney #australianmade #bees #australianhoneySommelier #sommelier #cheesepairing #beekeeper #blackberryhoney #bluecheese
I'm delighted with the write up by Richard Cornish I'm delighted with the write up by Richard Cornish for today's The Sunday Age and Good Food online on the importance of celebrating Australian honey and the uniqueness of our local flavours and varients. Thank you! 🙏🥰🐝🍯
Read the full article here. https://www.goodfood.com.au/eat-out/news/yes-honey-sommelier-is-now-a-delicious-new-job-20210528-h1w4mo
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#honeysommelier #honey #bees #australianhoney #beekeeper #beekeeping #australianhoney #honeysommelieraustralia #foodie #australiangoodfood #australianfoodie #foodie #australianfoodblogger #australianproduce #imarocketlady @miafreedman @ladystartups
It was an incredible honour to share my love and a It was an incredible honour to share my love and appreciation of honey with 20 Melbourne locals this week. This was my first non-virtual tasting since lockdown, which made Thursday's event even more special.

A HUGE thank you to @melbournefarmersmarkets for making this happen. To @practical_beekeeper for being my beekeeper co-host. To @walkaboutapiaries for providing  the delicious @whiteheadsmeadmilawa mead and @milawacheese for their delicious cheese for us to pair a selection of honey with. Never forget: cheese and honey are best friends! 😉🍯🧀 

The biggest thank you is to everyone who came down to join us, experience the tasting and learn some new skills and an even bigger appreciation for honey along the way. 🥰
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#honeysommelier #honeysommelieraustralia #honeybee #honeytasting #australianhoney #foodie #melbournefood #melbournefoodie #beekeeper #melbourneproduce #ladystartup #imarocketlady #supportlocalbees #localhoney
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CONTACT


I would love to host honey tastings, write up notes or work with you on pairing and honey selection. Contact me directly for any inquiries. queenbee@honeymerchant.com.au

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