Tasting Notes
Honey is tasted the way wine is tasted, and for the same reason: a single origin carries a single place.
How to taste
- Room temperature. Cold honey is mute.
- Half a teaspoon. Look at it against light — colour runs from near-white to near-black and predicts intensity.
- Smell before tasting. Most of what you will call flavour is aroma.
- Let it melt on the tongue rather than swallowing. Wait.
- Note the finish. Cheap honey has none; it is sweet and then gone.
Mesquite — Enredadera
Colour: pale, close to white wine.
Nose: soft, dry, faintly smoky.
Palate: caramel first, then something green underneath.
Finish: long and dry, no cloying edge.
With: aged cheese, sourdough, bourbon, black coffee.
Mesquite blooms for a few weeks a year in dry country, and only when the rain arrives. Some years there is little of it.
Wildflower — De Todas Las Flores
Colour: amber.
Nose: floral, wider, less defined.
Palate: rounder and sweeter than mesquite, more obviously floral.
Finish: medium.
With: fresh cheese, yoghurt, tea, stone fruit.
Polyfloral by definition — it records whatever was in bloom, which changes every season.
The vocabulary
Useful words: dry, floral, resinous, smoky, green, caramelised, waxy, citric, malty, herbal.
Words that mean nothing: pure, natural, premium.