A story of my fateful connection with honey

A few days ago I attended the Seed Project Art, Architecture and Life Exhibition - Urban Terraces & Local Dining Tables

Hosted by Teacher Xu Zhong, who shared knowledge about honey, and everyone discussed it very enthusiastically.

 

What left a deep impression on me was that when there is no nectar to harvest, beekeepers, afraid the bees will starve to death, have no choice but to feed the honey bees sugar,

because the price of sugar rises year after year, beekeepers also have to bear very high costs.

 

Honey is the food that raises the next generation,

so if honey bees find that they have eaten bad honey, they will choose to end it all…

Once the environment suffers damage, then the number of honey bees will also grow fewer and fewer.

 

Thinking back carefully…I really do have a bond with honey!

 

Honey Village—Hualien Tourism Winery

In the summer of my junior year of university, while waiting to join the discussion camp about the Suhua Highway, I wandered around Hualien alone,

After wandering around Qixingtan, I also wandered over to the Hualien Tourism Winery,

On an ordinary afternoon, there were pitifully few people in the winery,

The auntie at Honey Village spent a lot of time explaining the advantages of honey to me,

and also gave an on-site demonstration of how to tell real honey from fake honey: real honey contains pollen and cannot let light through, while fake honey lets you see the words behind it…

She explained it very thoroughly, fluently introducing all the nutritional value and benefits of honey,

What impressed me was that honey is a food healthy for the whole family, and drinking it on an empty stomach after getting up in the morning gives the best absorption, and it also has enzymes, which can prevent constipation.

Anyway, the benefits are countless,

So, regardless of the fact that there were still five or six days left in my trip, I bought a big heavy jar of pure honey without hesitation~

(Looking back now, she really was a very professional salesperson, so salespeople selling fresh food really have a disadvantage when it comes to getting customers to buy immediately…)

 

But…when I got home, the first thing was being laughed at by my mom for how I could lose my mind and carry honey around while traveling, and then being questioned about how I knew whether it was real honey or fake honey…

At the time I said this is real, look, it doesn't let light through!

My older sisters all chimed in and laughed,

and I couldn't come up with any other favorable evidence either…Half-believing and half-doubting, I felt I might have been cheated too.

(I was young, after all, and forgot to just google it right away)

 

But I still drank it slowly,

and it took about one or two years to finish it~

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Honey Feast—Taiwan Good Foundation

 

During my master's program I often went to Taitung, and at the Taiwan Good Foundation in Tiehua Village, I got to know Honey Feast from Guanshan Township, Taitung County,

Honey Feast's small-bottle honeys have many flavors to choose from,

such as: osmanthus, hundred herbs, sunflower, Japanese ternstroemia, pomelo, longan flower, wild field, Chinese tallow tree, and so on…

Tasting different flavors of honey surprised me greatly, since I had only ever eaten traditional longan honey,

Each one's mouthfeel, fragrance, and color were all different,

Honey Feast's honey almost never lets light through, and feels like it has a lot of pollen, with several kinds still in a crystallized state (it's said that the kind that crystallizes is usually the real honey),

The small-bottle honey needs to be scooped out with a spoon and spread on bread, which is a bit unsuitable for a lazy person like me who just wanted to add water and drink it down at the time…

 

The large jar of longan flower honey jumped straight to 600g, which for someone like me who hadn't drunk honey for a while, and who was also afraid of being laughed at by my family again, was actually a bit much!

 

But I was deeply impressed by their many flavors of honey, and in order to promote Taiwanese agricultural products, I even introduced a Hong Kong friend to visit the Taiwan Good store at Zhongshan Station in Taipei,

Later my friend bought a set of little bricks and tiles that could build a house~

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Honey Hall—Good Cho's, Taichung Park Lane by Splendor…

Honey Hall at Park Lane by Splendor in Taichung is half a dedicated counter, but when it came to Good Cho's in Taipei, only a pitiful few rows of display space were left…

Honey Hall puts out a convenient squeeze bottle of longan honey, very easy to squeeze and use, and it won't leave honey smeared all around the bottle mouth,

so it is a very suitable honey option to take abroad as a gift,

 

When visiting a Hong Kong friend I brought a bottle as a meeting gift,

(I was very surprised that Hong Kong people love drinking beverages containing dietary fiber, and the checkout area often has half-price items piled up; do they all suffer from constipation?)

Then the fun part came,

Under my instructions, my Hong Kong friend drank a cup on an empty stomach,

She said she didn't dare drink any more; after drinking it for two days, she went "up" for two days~ (Wow! Such a good effect!)

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Real Honey - Hong Kong Po Sang Yuen Bee Farm

I discovered this brand while wandering around Ding Hao in Hong Kong; the outer packaging said Po Sang Yuen Bee Farm is Hong Kong's first bee farm, with a hundred-year history,

It felt very impressive, so I bought the hundred-flower honey,

This honey was very affordable, with a rich aroma, and should be mainly longan honey, suitable for use in drinks

In the end I got a big laugh from my Hong Kong friend's dad…he said he had never heard of Hong Kong producing honey… (Do elders all have past experience of buying fake honey?)

 

However, when bringing the honey back home, I forgot to put it in a plastic bag and seal it tightly,

and after going through customs, I almost turned my entire suitcase into a "honey suitcase"!

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Shanye Family—NewsMarket platform, Good Cho's, 248 Farm School Market…

 

When I came across the NewsMarket platform, it was selling Shanye Family's honey,

Out of curiosity I googled it online, and gained a better impression of the Shanye Family brand,

Later, when wandering around the green market, I just went ahead and bought some from the Shanye Family owner's older sister, fragrant lychee honey 500ml; 300 yuan

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Hua Jian Ji—Carrefour

 

Hua Jian Ji puts out large-capacity honey, with a heavy aroma, and it tastes like it has a relatively high proportion of longan honey, suitable for brewing and drinking.

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Beekeeper's Home—Yuanshan, YilanBee Collection Hall,Taipei, Taoyuan…

 

Beekeeper's Home has set up the Bee Collection Hall in Yuanshan, Yilan,

The Bee Collection Hall is a bit like a museum of bees, where anyone can visit for free to learn about honey and beehives,

 

What left a deep impression on me was the royal jelly!

There was once research showing that if you feed ordinary worker bees royal jelly, they will also grow into long-lived queen bees~

So amazing~

No wonder…royal jelly is expensive and has a strange taste, yet many people still like it!

 

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The nutritional value of honey

(Taken from Honey Hall)http://www.pcstore.com.tw/honeyfarmhoney/M05711603.htm

 

Honey is mainly composed of monosaccharides and oligosaccharides, so the human body can absorb and use it immediately without burdening the liver.

Honey is rich in vitamins, amino acids, enzymes, and minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc, making it most suitable for busy modern people who need to quickly replenish nutrients.

Drinking honey on an empty stomach in the morning is a very good habit. It makes bowel movements smooth, nourishes the skin, maintains health, and honey has a very good cleansing effect on the waste produced in human blood.

 

After adding honey to household drinking water, while replenishing water you can also replenish natural vitamins and minerals. Many experts suggest: drinking water in the morning is good, and drinking honey water is even better.

When there is no time to eat breakfast, you can also directly hold a spoonful of honey in your mouth to quickly replenish nutrients and protect the stomach; it is suggested to eat it together with biscuits or bread.

 

Besides being sweet, honey also carries floral fragrance, and can be added to any drink. Using honey to replace general sugars such as fructose is not only nutritious but also healthy. When your throat is sore and uncomfortable, you can take a spoonful of honey and swallow it slowly, which can clear the voice and soothe the throat.