Manuka honey, I have been hearing a lot about this honey and
occassionaly its nice to have tea with a littlle sweetner in. ( I can
hear all those tea officionados scoffing) I read this article
http://www.downtoearth.org/articles/manuka_honey.htm Anyone tried
this stuff. I am thinking of getting some to try out.

magicleaf > wrote:
>Manuka honey, I have been hearing a lot about this honey and
>occassionaly its nice to have tea with a littlle sweetner in. ( I can
>hear all those tea officionados scoffing)

Manuka and Kanuka are in the tea tree family and related to the familiar
Melaleuca quinquenervia that is a plague in Florida. The flowers also
smell basically like melaleuca flowers, so I would assume that honey
made from them would have a similar taste.

Putting sweetener in tea is a waste of good tea, but putting a strongly
flavoured sweetener in tea seems to miss the whole point of tea.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I agree with you on the high quality teas it would spoil the delecay,
however In an iced tea I always add something to lift out the tanin
taste, for some reason my palette gets a stronger hint of bitterenss
when I drink the teas cold, and that is mainly black teas. Rather than
sugar I always found a nice honey does the trick , but only a little.

If any honey could taste medicinal this one is it. It smells like
cough syrup. I have a jar I found in an Asian store. It is
distributed by Prince Of Peace in the US. You can buy it by the
'Active Rating' online. The higher the better if you want the
'medicinal' version. Besides looking for tea in ethnic stores I also
look for honey from other countries. Honey is different in taste as
any tea. I only recommend 'raw' honey which is unpasteurized and
unfiltered. The USDA might be too late but honey bees in this country
could disappear. There is a local hive about 5 miles away and those
bees are already in my maple tree. I often stand in the low branches
and drink a cup of tea while the busy bees buzz around me with no
notice. One or two might be attracted to the aroma from the cup but
the heat keeps them away. My only regret in life I never started my
own hives.

Jim

On Mar 16, 11:49 am, "magicleaf" > wrote:
> Manuka honey, I have been hearing a lot about this honey and
> occassionaly its nice to have tea with a littlle sweetner in. ( I can
> hear all those tea officionados scoffing) I read this articlehttp://www.downtoearth.org/articles/manuka_honey.htm Anyone tried
> this stuff. I am thinking of getting some to try out.

I met a chap today who knew about honey and discussed the topic with
him and turns out he has bee hives that are in the ground and they are
not for the normal bees but for BUMBLE BEEs ? Huh never knew that
honey could come from a bumble bee...
Mauirce

Hi )

I'm from New Zealand, I love Manuka Honey on my toast! Manuka Honey is
very nice but as Scott mentioned it can be fairly strong flavoured
which I'd say is probably not suited to many varieties of tea. In fact
I'd say it's worse off being used in lesser quality tea because the
flavour of the honey will be less complimented by the flavours of the
tea, or vice versa... simply because lesser quality tea lacks any
fresh distinctive flavour. The higher quality teas are just more
complex in thier flavour, so I guess it's true that the complexity is
a delicate balance... that's not to say the flavour is always light
and delicate? perhaps used in small amounts the Manuka Honey could
work well within that delicate balance without throwing it off. It's
not easy trying to describe something as subtle as taste is huh?
Flavour can be subtle yet distinctive all at the same time?! )

Just a suggestion but I would think manuka honey if used at all would
match best with earthy or woody tones, some of the distinctive
flavoured teas... probably not suited to the delicate(light) teas. You
may just need to experiment to find what suits best depending on your
teas and which manuka honey you have... some definitely have a more
medicinal flavour than others which you might want to avoid.

I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a touch of honey to
some teas though, as long as it's just complimenting the tea flavour,
not detracting or overpowering it. It can be a good way of weaning
people onto pure tea without milk )

Jon



On Mar 17, 6:49 am, "magicleaf" > wrote:
> Manuka honey, I have been hearing a lot about this honey and
> occassionaly its nice to have tea with a littlle sweetner in. ( I can
> hear all those tea officionados scoffing) I read this articlehttp://www.downtoearth.org/articles/manuka_honey.htm Anyone tried
> this stuff. I am thinking of getting some to try out.

Right from the horses mouth!! great stuff. I am attemting to convert
as many people as possible to becoming tea drinkers and as they know
little about tea they always want something that is sweet and
exciting , so I I offer them flavored teas like strawberry , lemon,
passion fruit etc and they like to add a sweetener and I just think
honey is so much better than sugar. The people who I have converted to
tea will hopefully learn to appreciate the natural and origional taste
of the teas .