Organising honey tasting at your apiary
Country of origin: Sweden
Contact person: Malin Landqvist
E-mail: malin@malinlandqvist.se
Website: https://www.malinlandqvist.se/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malinlandqvist/
After many years as a chef, sommelier and cookbook author, Malin wrote a book (World Changing Cookbook) together with climate scientist Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for climate impact research, that for sure changed her career! Malin says: “This collaboration was the springboard that made me decide that whatever I take on in my profession, sustainability should be central. This collaboration also connected me to beekeeping as Svenska Bin contacted me, and we have been working closely together for about two years, both towards consumers and beekeepers.”
Even if she was a newcomer into the beekeeping sector, she suddenly realised that many beekeepers lack in-depth knowledge about the raw material itself, thus she implemented a training path that also include hands-on train-the trainers workshops, as the “How to organise a honey tasting at your farm”
“I have a distinctive Vision (To nationally raise awareness of diversity and the importance of pollination, as well as increase awareness of the variety of honey that exists, if we just open our minds a little)”, Malin states, “and an ambitious Mission (To inspire and educate beekeepers to organise trials on their apiary, with the aim of raising awareness of honey and pollination). However, the education program is also targeting the whole community and she trusts beekeepers as leverage for a change of habits: “Considering how much fake honey is sold in Sweden, we also want to raise awareness so that people buy real honey instead of flavoured fructose. The level of knowledge is low among consumers, so there is a lot to do. I believe that beekeepers have so much to teach, and that so many are curious and want to learn more.
Organization of the workshop:
The classes are organised by Svenska Bin with financial support from the Swedish Board of Agriculture/EU. Theory is alternated with practice during a 90-120 minutes session.
Thus far there is a high interest in participating, and all classes are well attended.
The program starts with a light, sensory exercise to open our senses. Different jars of different dry ingredients are shaken, smelled and then everyone has to guess what it is. It gets the participants going in a positive and fun way. According to Malin, “Gamification is pivotal, especially in senior-education: they might be very motivated, which is good, but setting the right mood is helping them go back into student-mode and attend like a class rather than a group of individuals”. Hands-on activities continue in the early part of the workshop, as concrete tips on self-organisation of different types of tastings, including some that are extremely simple and basic but still provide very good information to visitors to their apiaries. It could be honey at different stages, pairing honey with the right plant, cheese and honey tasting, etc. The first lecture is about “The art of holding a tasting” and explains an in-depth and thorough review of how to best conduct a tasting. Also shows how a seated tasting is done, which is then performed in practice. A second lecture offers an overview of “Food & Honey” from the sensory perspective (How are our senses affected when we mix honey with different types of raw materials? How to balance our basic flavours. What’s the impact of Textures and temperatures? Description of Flavour palettes). Finally, the lectures are enforced into practice during the last session “The art of tasting”[where a thorough tasting is held according to all the rules of the art. “Participants are guided through five tasting sessions – Malin says – all the time I work hard to ensure that they don’t feel a sense of achievement, but have fun and get inspired!”
When asked about the key-point for the successful organisation, Malin concludes “The best part seems to be keeping the training at a simple level that feels inspiring and knowledgeable at the same time. I also wove in a lot about food, how to think about flavour, as that is my main focus. This is appreciated by the participants who also want to refine their honey into toffees, juices and more.”
