Maison Jean Philippe is arguably the best bread maker in Bangkok. The breads are of excellent quality and are known for having a hard crust whilst being soft and elastic on the inside. A chunky slice provides an excellent base for which to spread a thick layer of butter to be topped by bananas and followed by a generous drizzle of honey. Bake until the banana absorbs the butter and honey and takes on a custard consistency. The flavor of the cooked banana infused with butter and honey pairs very well with the signature toffee and caramel (ish) character of age Yiwu tea.
Sharing My Experience with Honey - It is my belief that natural honey that is raw, unadulterated and with the minimum of processing have a great many benefits. Over the years I have tried many different varieties of honey that have been sourced from different countries and have been sold under different brands. From my experience the quality of honey varies significantly leading me to group honey into 3 main categories.
Category 3 – Honey under this category falls under the criteria of mass produced honey that is processed and packed in large quantities. The honey consists of your most common and available products that line the supermarket shelves. The products will often display great consistency in quality and taste however the characteristics will tend to be relatively simple and one dimensional. Furthermore products are inclined to undergo ultra filtration (to remove the source pollen), pasteurized (using high heat that kills off the natural enzymes of raw honey) and in some cases bulked up with additions of syrup or some form of sugar and additives. Consequently the above processing will reduce and destroy much of the natural benefits to be found in raw honey.
Category 2 – The criteria for honey under category 2 is based on a small to medium scale production that is supported by small production outfits and independent beekeepers. The range in quality varies greatly depending on the local environment (from which the bees gather their food), the professionalism of the people involved and the integrity of the production. Much of this kind of honey is sold locally and at farmers market. The attraction for purchasing local honey is in supporting local business and acquiring the peace of mind that comes from knowing exactly how and where your honey is produced and comes from respectively (local businesses that take pride in their product are quite friendly and open towards sharing how things are conducted).
Category 1 – The most memorable honey I have encountered is often from locals who are not beekeepers but honey collectors who venture out to remote areas (where the natural environment remains intact) and collect honey from wild beehives in the forest. An abundant and diverse food source that grows naturally makes forest honey more potent, possess a greater complexity of character and is less likely to be contaminated by pesticides and chemicals. As a result honey enthusiasts favor forest (or wild) honey over honey that is collected from a modern beekeeping operation that may be exposed to bad practices.
The human influence involved in beekeeping can sometimes touch on bad practices that incorporate feeding bees with blocks of sugar or bowls containing syrup. Furthermore beehives situated close to fruit orchards and modern farms that are heavily sprayed with insecticide and toxic chemicals are likely to contain trace elements of those very chemicals as the returning bees gets exposed and carry the chemicals back with them to the hive. The exposure and accumulation of these toxic chemicals by honey bees is believed to be a contributing factor towards the mass die off of bees (a phenomenon referred to as colony collapse disorder (CCD)). An article by The Guardian reports on a study by Harvard University linking neonicotionoids (a widely used class of insecticide) to CCD. For a number of years CCD has become increasingly widespread in America and Europe as well as globally. The consequences and threat of CCD does not only effect honey production but the production of much of the world’s agricultural produce which relies on bee pollination for fertilization to bear fruits.
I share with you a few videos (below) reporting on the plight of the vanishing bees and its threat to agriculture and food production. CCD is a very real concern and there are numerous articles and reports circulating on the Internet for those interested in digging deeper by way of Google or other means.
SciShow Channel - What's Happening to Honey Bees?
BBC Documentary - Who Killed the Honey Bees
Vanish of the Bees
