This year we decided to enter 2 of our honeys which we felt were a little special this season; our beautiful Oak-rich Serra da Estrela honey and our new Madeiran Laurissilva Cloud Forest Honey.
The judges at Great Taste seemed to share our opinion and saw fit to award stars to both of them. To the judges, Thank you for your continued appreciation of our beautiful artisan honeys.
Our Serra Da Estrela Mountain honey won 2 stars ( having already won One star in a previous year)
The Laurissilva Cloud Forest honey from Madeira won 1 star. ( Its only a matter of time before this unique honey enjoys a wider audience.)
Some of the judges comments are below.
This honey had a lovely acidity and a plum-like sweetness. We really loved the syrupy mouthfeel and while we couldn't detect any subtle truffle flavour, we really enjoyed it.
Beautiful, gelled texture and nut-brown hue. Caramel richness, savoury notes, flavours of dried fig, raisins. So complex. Loads of character - even Christmas pudding notes. A delight.
This honey has a thick, unctuous consistency and a pleasingly warm, dark chestnut colouring. The product has earthy tones which are well balanced by a bouquet of floral notes. There is some complexity, but this fades fairly quickly.
Attractively presented, this honey has an inviting caramel colour and aroma. The honey is luscious with flowery toffee notes and a thick texture.
This honey looks enticing with its golden treacle colour and aromatic bouquet. It has a depth of flavour with floral caramel notes which transport you to north Madeira.
Pleasing nutty colour. Rich intensity of flavour with mango and a touch of leathery savouriness/salinity. Wonderfully layered and complex.
I know that we are we are merely simple honey sellers but after the collective psychotic episode, utterly disastrous, public health car-crash, technocratic fronted, billionaire coup, of the last two years which has caused so much suffering to so many, it's hard to find anything particularly cheery to write about or to pretend in some Pollyanna fashion that things are OK in any way whatsoever. Still for those of us still in good health and work or business, we are still amongst the more fortunate. Let us hope we have reached an inflexion point and that sanity and perspective make a welcome return to all of our lives.
So with a sense of proportion firmly intact, I would like to humbly introduce our newest offering; Raw Laurissilva Cloud Forest honey from the Island of Madeira. A rare bit of good news, well for us at least.
Madeira for those who don't know is part of a tiny archipelago a few hundred miles west of Morocco and about twice that distance south of Portugal. The main island, Madeira, which means "wood", is a sub tropical island which is home to the last remaining Laurissilva Cloud forest which once covered prehistoric Europe (and now a UNESCO world heritage site). An old growth primary forest, much of it inaccessible filled with ancient Laurel trees and tropical flowers.
Sitting on the wild North shore of the Atlantic coast is the village of Sao Vicente, which reaches up to the very edges of the forest, and it is here that Mr. Viera has a modest number of hives which produce a most wonderful and rare honey. It is dark and rich, both malty and fruity and seems to lend itself to every kind of usage. I have no doubt that this extraordinary honey is not only delicious but probably has excellent healing properties.
Needless to say this honey is rare and made in small quantities and will not be found anywhere else in the UK. We have only about 600 kilos of two of the very best batches made this year. So despite all the Brexit hurdles, supply chain difficulties and all else, we really believe this Cloud Forest honey is worth the effort. It is unabashedly pricey, for any number of reasons, but for all that we bring it to you at a price as fair as every other honey we source.
We think it would make a beautiful gift for any lover of honey as it is unquestionably a bit special. We sincerely hope you enjoy it.
Facebook and Instagram are both owned by the most reprehensible, criminal, predatory and immoral people whose practices we simply can't condone, Regardless of how many times marketing experts tell us that they are vital to our survival in the crowded marketplace. I personally feel that Facebook has had the most corrosive effect on society and discourse, its practices are so predatory and even nihilistic that to even hold your nose and participate is no longer an option.
This is the standard bearer of Surveillance capitalism, Remember the maxim " if its free, you are the product". Their business model is the minute analysis of every aspect of your existence, and the monetization of it. They will sell your info ( and all their black box analytics of it) to anyone who pays them. They have been attempting to redefine the notion of privacy from day one. They have made your children insecure and neurotic dopamine addicts and are destroying their capacity for creativity, imagination and empathy. What could have been a great enterprise in human connection and discourse has turned into something monstrous.
Now, after nearly a year and half of the most appalling censorship where any debate or presentation of evidence about public health matters is effectively quashed, this disgusting corporation has now decided to be the arbiters and guardians of our "health".!!!! Words fail me. The hypocrisy is epic.
We are completely abandoning this Orwellian CIA funded enterprise.
(Google are certainly worse than facebook with regard to surveillance capitalism, but much harder to dispense with as their presence on the web is so ubiquitous.)
Owing to the fact that I deleted my personal account, they will no longer permit me to even login to our business page. So the historical record of our FB page will continue to exist on it's servers. In the meantime if you want some of the best honey money can buy from a company that still knows right from wrong and good from evil, who wont pester you with endless emails and whose only use for your info is to put an address label on your order, you have found the right place.
Goodbye FB and Instagram. A better world awaits.
