Honey

12/22/07 21:05:05

Winter is the time for, among other things, sweet fragrances. The honey scent is one of the irresistible and exciting natural scents, which captivates not only people, but many animals as well.

People use honey as food and nutrient since the ancient times. It was the only sweet of our ancient predecessors, and not only a sweet. They used to eat and drink honey; they used it as an excellent natural preservative for meet and dairy. Besides, we all know about its medicinal properties.

Various sorts of honey differ by their color, taste, smell... The color ranges from white to dark brown, and the taste, which is naturally sweet, can have various nuances: mild, bitter, austere... A tart taste indicates that it is spoilt. A good quality ripe honey has no more of 20% humidity and the humidity is regulated by bees. The honey ripens in a beehive for about one week and when ripe, it can preserve its properties, including medicinal, for years.

Honey bees are miraculous insects whose survival depends on the constant hard work. The work is divided among bees – some of them search for nectar and pass on the message about the route to the others by a gracious dance language, which makes other bees to fly and collect the nectar. One bee can collect approximately 40 mg of nectar at once, and after delivering it in the beehive it flies back for more. One beehive can produce up to 150 kg of honey during one summer.

The bees that are receiving honey in the beehive are responsible for humidity reduction in a way that by their wings they produce air draft which evaporates the water from the nectar. They also ingest and regurgitate the nectar a number of times and then store it to the honeycomb.

When buying honey it is important to taste it first. It should be sweet and should prickle the throat a bit. Also, to distinguish the high quality honey, check its consistency – a good quality honey does not flow fast and do not drop of the spoon, it flows in a straight squirt. To check whether honey is diluted with sugar syrup, put into it a piece of bread. If bread gets soften and damped, it means the honey is diluted. A drop of iodine will show the added starch or flour. Make sure that you buy only the real honey, which can not be cheap.

The scent of honey is delightsome and for that it is used in perfumes. The honey scent strings along with various notes, it can be dramatically bitter, seductive sweet, and it rounds the composition naturally and gets well with warm woodsy notes, citruses and other fruits.

Honey note is present in many sweet fragrances, but is emphasized in fragrances the name of which includes the word 'honey', or ‘miel’ and ‘mielle’. Those are for instance:
Eau de Miel L'Occitane en Provence – alcohol free
Miel & Citron L'Occitane en Provence
Miel de Bois Serge Lutens

Honey is also recognizable in Essence D'eau Gianfranco Ferre, Poeme Lancome, Red Door Elizabeth Arden, Chypre Rouge Serge Lutens, Soir de Lune Sisley...

It might be that honey is sweet because it is a product of a hard labor. The rest is best after a hard work and honeybees might be a good topic to think about for all those which are in search of the meaning of life.

See the recipe for Carrot Honey Soup

(Information about honey: Vokrug Sveta)

Author: Elena Knežević (jeca)
Fragrantica Member