Honey the perfect sweetener for flavored Teas! (long)

[Mizzgnomer]

I dislike sugar in any tea and only use honey. Now about honeys... Did you all realize that there are flavored honeys? I do NOT mean honey that's been artificially sweetened either. Depending on what the bees have polinated will affect the flavor of the honey.

Grocery store honeys are only for emergancys they are overly processed. The best honey to get is natural, and raw, you can find them on Ebay, actually a couple of months ago I sort of went on a honey buying spree on ebay. LOL

My favorite all time honey is Raspberry blossum honey, and yes it does have a raspberry flavor to it. But I bought from two differant sources on ebay and the one from the Apiary in Ca was definately from raspberry blossums. The other one from the east coast was obviously a wild flower honey that the seller was hoping no one would notice the differance, I sure did it's not very good at all.

The Raspberry honey compliments the flavored teas very nicely, it's a light amber honey. Blackberry honey is also very good with the fruit flavored teas. I got a lot of differant geographic areas wild flower honey, and of all the ones I've tried I really liked the two from Louisianna there was a very light amber and a medium amber colored honey. I also like the one from Ohio, again it's a very light yellow honey. I've heard a lot of people saying how good Tupelo honey is, so I had to try it as well, it's a medium amber honey but it's taste is overbearing and I won't get it again.

You will notice the colors in the honeys I like. Here is a lesson I learned from friends who used to keep bees (the mites wiped them out, and they used to have the best Sierra wild flower honey, and desert wild flower honey). The lighter the honey the sweeter the taste and the less you need to use. The very dark honeys are what are normally called "cooking" honeys they often have an odd after taste as well, my friends wouldn't even bottle that honey they would hold it out to feed the bees come winter.

If you haven't tried honey in tea yet and you like to sweeten your tea a bit, I really recommend you try some. Be sure to get natural, raw honey, and that is has NOT been heat treated. Real raw honey is full of various things that are very good for us. Also in a pinch did you know that honey can be used for a first aid dressing? Yes it can it's full of anti-bacterial agents that's why honey NEVER EVER goes bad! They have actually found honey in jars in the tombs in Egypt that is still good! Most raw honeys will crystalize the time it takes to happen varies, already a few of the ones I got have started to crystalize, but I just set their bottles in hot water (not boiling just hot from the tap) and soon they return to their liquid state, you can also use them chrysalized.

Can you tell I'm a honey nerd? LOL

Mizz

[teaspoon]

Wow, thanks for all that info Mizz! I do like to sweeten my tea a bit, but I confess, if it's a tea that I like the flavor of already I use sugar instead of honey, cos it doesn't have its own flavor. I'll have to try and find a good source near me for decent honey, though...

~teaspoon of sugar

[klemptor]

I enjoy using flavored honey in teas that are just "tea" flavored - like a good ceylon or darjeeling. I've always been interested to try (for instance) blackberry tea with blackberry honey, but haven't gone that route yet.

Usually, if I'm using sweetner, it's sugar.

[Bergamot]

Well until we breed some bees that make splenda honey, I'm pretty much out of luck...

Seriously though, I find that by the time I add enough honey to sweeten the tea, the honey flavor completely masks the tea flavor. Maybe that's your goal; I don't know.

Also, there are lots of stores online that carry specialty honeys; my personal favorite is Zingerman's.

[klemptor]

You have no idea the cute imagery that just popped into my head...little bees with tee-shirts that say "I make Splenda honey...ask me how!"

[teaspoon]

LOL I'd love to see a drawing of that, Klemptor...

~tsp

[Dronak]

That was a lot of information, but I'd be interested in knowing why the original poster prefers honey as a sweetener. Like others here, when I do sweeten tea, I use sugar. It's probably mostly from habit, that's how I grew up drinking tea, but sugar does have the advantage of being essentially unflavored. It's just sweet. Honey tends to have flavor with the sweetness and, as noted, there's a chance of that altering the flavor of the tea rather than just sweetening it. *shrug* I'm probably going to stick with sugar, though I imagine honey has its own advantages.

[Tadiera]

My main use for honey in tea is when I am sick and drinking a lot of herbal teas. The honey adds to the tea's ability to soothe the throat and it is good for you.

I doubt I would use a lot of it in most tea, though. Just the herbals or when I am sick (because sometimes, I will just grab a green and add honey if I am out of chamomile, etc).

[floridahawk]

Wow, I didn’t realize there was that much to honey. Raspberry blossom honey? That sounds absolutely delicious! Personally, I do not like milk or sweeteners in my tea. But coffee must be sweet with cream. I often use honey in my coffee because it is much better for you than sugar and taste better too.

A great place to look for natural, raw honey is at farmer’s markets, sometimes at flea markets. I live in Florida and can often find orange blossom honey, which is quite good.