Taste the Difference

We are in the tail end of the farmer’s market season here in Charlotte, NC and as such we’ve been selling a bunch of honey! For some marketgoers, sampling our honey might be the first time they’ve tried raw honey. It’s never a surprise to see their reaction when they sample our raw, Charlotte, NC local wildflower honey. When compared with some of the honeys you buy in the grocery store, the taste alone is quite the contrast.

But why is this? Well when it comes to buying honey from the grocery store, it can be very difficult determining where the honey came from and/or if it’s REAL honey. Honey is the second most conterfeited product in the world behind olive oil. In essence, the honey you purchased might not be 100% honey. It also might not come from the place that the bottle said it was from.

This I find is the biggest reason for why this honey tastes different. I too grew up on store bought honey and it really tastes NOTHING like the honey we produce here in Charlotte, NC. Now there are also other explanations for this. Perhaps the honey comes from a monoculture crop, giving it a flavor profile that isn’t very diverse. Clover honey for example is a bit boring to my tastebuds when compared with wildflower honey.

That’s why we label our honey as “wildflower.” It has the rich, diverse flavor that comes from multiple nectar sources. These sources change through the season but the most prevalent sources are as follows:

1. Tulip Poplar trees

2. Black Locust trees

3. Blackberry

4. Privet trees

5. Basswood trees

6. Clover

7. Native wildflowers

While some of our honeys might have one of these more than the other, depending on the time of the season they were harvested, they are most definitely not made from a monoculture. There is so much in bloom around us in the spring when the nectar flow is going strong!

In fact, with our apiary being adjacent to the Latta Nature Preserve in Huntersville, NC, we have acres and acres of untamed, biodiverse vegetation for our bees to forage from. This access not only produces a lot of honey, it also produces an unforgettable honey flavor.

This is great news to anyone who consumes our honey to help with allergies. Not only does this range of nectar sources give the honey a bolder flavor, it also gives a more colorful pollen profile! Each drop of honey also has a small amount of pollen within it, giving it the power to acclimate consumers to pollen in the environment, especially during major pollen events.

But as they say seeing, or in this case tasting, is believing! If you’re wanting to try this for yourself you’ve got plenty of options to get our honey here in Charlotte, NC. For the rest of October we will be at the Camp North End Farmer’s Market as well as a few other markets in November and December.

Can’t make the market? No problem! You can order our Charlotte, NC local honey straight from our online store where you can either ask for delivery or pick it up from our apiary in Huntersville, NC. While you’re here, you can even see where the honey comes from by seeing the hives in our yard. You sure can’t get that in the grocery store!