Honey Tasting activity, and Honey Map

The different types of honey are so beautiful. Look at the color variation!

I admit that before we had this tasting activity, I was skeptical about different honeys tasting that different from each other. I have tasted flavored honeys before (the kind with strawberries added, for example) but as far as pure honey, gathered from different types of flowers, I thought "how different can it be?" But we did really taste strong differences. It was fascinating.

I had bought a couple different local honeys at the farmer's market, and I bought a few more types from Amazon for us to try. We had local wildflower honey, local "urban" honey (the guy has hives on top of some buildings in downtown Salt Lake---so interesting), basic clover honey from the grocery store, and then sourwood, blueberry blossom, and orange blossom honey that I ordered online. 

Later we also got to try this honey from the Black Forest, and if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend tasting it. It's expensive, but SO interesting! It's made from "honeydew," which is a substance formed when little aphids feed on the sap of conifers. The aphids eat the sap and excrete this honeydew, and then the bees sip the honeydew and make honey from it. The honey is dark and rich and almost tastes like molasses! Delicious.

Ooh! Also, you should look at these pictures of some honey that bees made from M&Ms in France! 

I made little tasting sheets for us to fill out, and we talked about different adjectives we might use to describe what we tasted. We had water to cleanse our palates between tastes. :) The boys wrote down some great descriptive terms: like lavender, like pine sap, smoky, bitter, ting-y, caramelly, hits top of mouth sweetly. If we don't watch out they'll become wine tasters.

My favorite thing was watching how seriously everyone took this. They'd take a taste, roll it around on their tongues, close their eyes, lick their lips, furrow their brows. It was really funny and cute to watch.

Junie had to participate with everyone else, of course

Daisy filled up her sheet with neatly written observations, too

When we were done tasting, we enjoyed all the different honeys on homemade bread. They were so delicious!! My favorite was the sourwood, but I loved the Urban Honey too---it had an almost smoky taste. So interesting!!

We also talked about where in the United States these different types of honey were collected. We used the map on page 51 of this packet to talk about specialty honeys in different states. The children drew pictures of the kinds of flowers or fruits used to make honey in each state.