The Many Secrets of Georgian Honey | Hacker News Reader

The Many Secrets of Georgian Honey

worldsensorium.com

35 pointsperihelions14 comments

> Through their work, they’ve set standards for select honeys like the country’s famous Chestnut honey—a rare, bittersweet and intensely aromatic honey made by bees that harvest nectar of the flower of the chestnut tree

Er, I'm by no means an expert (though I do eat a lot of honey), but this sounds suspiciously like honeydew honey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Honeydew_honey), which is actually made not from nectar, but from (to quote the Wikipedia article) "honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids or other plant-sap-sucking insects", and is indeed "bittersweet and intensely aromatic", but not all that rare...

For some reason the idea of aphid honey gives me a "eww bugs" reaction, but then I think, "oh yeah, bees".

One insect secretion or another, it's basically the same thing.

Chestnut honey is not at all rare in countries with many chestnut trees, like around the Alps. In my hometown in southern europe you find it easily in supermarkets, and it's indeed bittersweet, aromatic, and dark brown.

Monoculture honey does often take on unique flavors and characteristics based on the source of the nectar. This doesn't seem odd to me at all. For a North American example, Tupelo Honey is a good example of a monoculture honey with a very unique flavor profile.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/french-bees-making-co...

Like M&M honey

This is chestnut honey and takes a lot of flavours from there like all honeys made from a specific plant or specific blend.

It's by no means unique. For instance there is chestnut honey from around the centre of France where there are chestnut forests.

Anyway, for me the best honey is lavender honey.

Server seems unhappy, but the archive has caught it: https://archive.ph/74dHx

But nothing will catch the amazing place there, I visited this lake with my family there 2 years ago and the wonderful scents permeated the valley almost like magic. In my hotel room the jar of honey we bought lasted 4 days. https://sworld.co.uk/02/699964/photoalbum/lake-ritsa-in-geor...

Just harvested honey this past week from my hives... taste was absolutely the best honey I've ever imagined. So much more floral and complex than anything store bought. Watched them fly back and forth from the lavender to the hives all last summer.

Good for you, but how is this related to TFA?

Because good sir, rather than being snotty and downvotey and the type of jerk who has utterly ruined HN, I chose to reveal myself as a fellow beekeeper in hopes that there might be fellow beekeepers here who would also want to share their stories.

So, perhaps learn how to human and instead say something like "Wow, other HN human, I'd love to learn more. Have you ever noticed that different flowers or trees make a noticeable difference with your apiary? Have you experienced varoa? What's your thoughts on the various types of European bees, especially those that may have varoa resistance?" or any other number of hundreds of questions that might add to the dialog.

Or continue to shitpost, I don't care - this is my throw away account because I got tired of responses like yours utterly devoid of curiosity and just here to shit on everyone else.

I didn't vote on anything. I was uncertain if you were dispensing with a tangentially related personal anecdote or if I'd overlooked a more significant connection with the topic of what's unique and special about Georgian honey.

I agree, HN is a very specific thing, with fairly strict rules and autistically narrow norms and protocols. I check out reddit or one of the chans when I want more open ended discussion. Live long and prosper, friend.

I recently had my first floral honey experience, it's amazing that I'd went this long without knowing that honey can taste flower-y! I'm considering raising chickens in the future --how difficult is beekeeping to get into, in your opinion?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com