What does honey taste like? That’s the question Australia’s only honey sommelier likes to ask people as she travels the country.
“Most people will say ‘sweet’, or ‘like toffee’, or ‘caramel’,” Jessica Locarnini said.
“The answer should be: Which honey?
“Because the flavours are so different. They’ve got anything from warm flavours, fresh flavours, floral flavours, fruit flavours, woody and everything in between.”
Ms Locarnini, who’s based in Melbourne and works in marketing, had been a backyard beekeeper for years before she discovered honey sommeliers “were a thing” about five years ago.
She just had to know more, and headed overseas to study with some of the world’s top honey sommeliers.
“It was a rabbit hole that I just discovered this amazing world of honey flavours,” she said.
“It was fantastic.”
What is a honey sommelier?
A honey sommelier is similar to a wine sommelier — someone who understands and can detect the different sensory characteristics of honey and can recommend pairings and flavour combinations.
“If you’ve done wine tasting, it’s pretty much the same but with honey,” Ms Locarnini said.
Ms Locarnini did her foundation sommelier training in Connecticut in the United States before completing her advanced qualifications in Italy last year.
“I don’t know many other people who’ve actually had a honey hangover,” she laughed.
“We did blind taste testing and trying to identify flavours from about 8am until 6pm, just sort of tasting honey all day.”
In between each honey, Ms Locarnini said the taste testers would cleanse their palate by taking bites of apple and clear their sense of smell by sniffing their arm.
“So, if anyone was walking past us in our exams and in the training centre they wouldn’t know what was happening, seeing us tasting honey, sniffing and eating apples,” she said.
“No one would guess what we’re up to in that room.”
There are some similarities between a wine and honey sommelier, with honey sommeliers using wine glasses to capture the essence of the honey, and adopting similar language to describe flavours and characteristics.
When presented with a wine glass of honey to assess, Ms Locarnini will first hold the glass up to the light to see the liquid’s colour and crystals.
She then smells the aromas captured within the glass, before using a spoon to smear the honey around the inside of the glass and tasting a small sample.
Excuse me, which eucalyptus?
One of the varieties Ms Locarnini was tested on during her training overseas was “eucalyptus”.
“Being the only Australian in the class, I put my hand up and I was like, ‘which one?’,” she recalled.
It turned out to be river red gum, which grows in Italy and the United States.
Knowing Australia is home to hundreds of eucalypt species, the experience fuelled Ms Locarnini’s passion for teaching Aussies how to appreciate honey and the wide variety of flavours available across the county.
Just like wine, she said terroir played a big role in the taste of honey, with distinct flavour profiles between states.
“When I go to Tasmania, leatherwood and a lot of those really heady floral aromatics dominate the flavour profile,” she said.
“Then you go to Perth, and they’ve got these beautiful big giant jarrah forests, there’s really sort of complex, rich and broody honey that you get over there.
“And then if you go up to Queensland, you get the subtropical, beautiful honey, some taste a bit like lychee tea.
“We’re so lucky, we’ve got so many diverse botanicals that come out throughout the year.”
Even different types of backyard honeys in towns and cities have distinct flavours worth appreciating, she said.
“There are some beautiful urban honeys that have got the flavours of all the different characteristics of the demographic of that area, whether it be market gardens or herbs or small plants on people’s balconies in apartments – those flavours come into the city [honeys],” she said.
With more people learning the art of honey appreciation, Ms Locarnini hopes to map and document the characteristic of different honeys across the country, similar to profiles available in Italy.
Canberra region’s first ‘honey weekend’
Ms Locarnini’s desire to expand people’s taste buds has also led her to team up with Canberra beekeeper Cormac Farrell, who tends to the hives at Parliament House.
The pair presented the capital region’s first “honey weekend” of tastings and workshops, celebrating Canberra, Yass, Murrumbateman and Gundaroo’s unique flavours.
“Canberra’s got some really lovely flavours — including some of the best honey in the world — through the city,” Mr Farrell said.
“The ACT government grows a whole lot of different plants all through the place including the famous yellow box, which is probably our best honey-producing plant, and that’s grown as a street tree everywhere.”
Mr Farrell doesn’t think Canberra’s honeys get the kudos they deserve.
“Each flavour from each suburb will be really unique, and you get a different flavour depending on the time of year and even year to year,” he said.
It’s those unique flavours that Ms Locarnini teaches honey lovers to detect and then pair with other local produce.
“People tend to put honey on cereal, toast, maybe tea or coffee if they’re wild,” she said.
“But honey and cheese are best friends.
“So, I say swap out the quince paste and have a variety of different honeys because if you combine the textures and the flavours of the cheese with the different honeys it’s such an interesting activity.”
‘Buy 100 per cent Australian honey’
As she travels around the country working with apiarists and chefs, running workshops, and judging honey competitions, Ms Locarnini encourages everyone to buy honey from local producers.
“Honey is the third most faked food in the world, only beaten by olive oil and milk,” she said.
“But you get what you pay for, and you really should know what you’re eating.
“Look at the label, make sure you buy 100 per cent Australian and try and have it in its most natural form as possible.
“If it crystallises, that’s not a sign that it’s spoiled. It’s actually a really great sign that you’ve bought 100 per cent real honey.
“All honey should eventually crystallise. If you’ve got a yellow squeezy bottle in your cupboard that’s been sitting there for five years, and hasn’t changed form, then it could be treated.”
Eating local blends can also help some hay fever sufferers, especially in a place like Canberra.
“There’s so much more to honey than the homogenised blends you might get in the supermarkets,” Mr Farrell said.
“In general, honey is an incredibly healthy food, it’s got a whole lot of natural proteins and vitamins especially if you’ve got raw honey because that’s got the pollen mixed through it and that can give people a little more exposure to some of the allergens.”
Posted , updated
