Honey
The Superfood
Honey is the oldest naturally occurring sweetener known to humans. A superfood that we have used for over 8,000 years, it is a natural food and an excellent quick-energy source with naturally occurring minerals, antioxidants, enzymes, proteins, amino acids, vitamins, etc. Regular consumption of honey can fend off coughs, allergies, and infections. It is good for the eyesight, helps heal wounds, burns, gastric troubles, and peptic ulcers. Ayurveda propounds the use of honey as an antibacterial agent. It is also used in food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Honey is also widely used for making honey wines and beers, breakfast cereal, confectionery, and other value-added products. Honey is, thus, a staple with a long shelf life if kept away from moisture.
Honey Truths
Raw, unpasteurised, unprocessed honey is honey extracted directly from the beehive and not exposed to heat. It is merely strained to remove external impurities. If derived from natural sources like the Himalaya, where the indigenous mountain honeybees, Apis Cerana Indica flourish, then it would be one of the best possible quality of honey available. However, raw, unpasteurised, unprocessed honey must not be given to infants.
It should be noted that naturally occurring honey can never be consistent in colour, taste and consistency since each flowering plant has its own special type of nectar. The colour, fragrance, taste, texture, density, and degree of crystallization of honey depends completely on the source of the nectar.
100 grams of honey provides about 1,270 kJ (304 kcal) of energy. Composed of 17% water and 82% carbohydrates, honey has a low content of fat, dietary fibre, and protein.
The H-Factor ™
At Himalayan Essence, we endeavour to bring you 100% natural honey straight from the Himalaya. Our honey is tested in certified laboratories for both, its natural purity and nutritional content.
More importantly, it is also tested for its pollen count – which is one of the primary measures of the nutritional quality of honey – the higher the pollen count, the higher the nutritional quality. We call it the “H-Factor” ™ .
On our product labels, we share, along with the nutritional information, the H-Factor ™ range of the honey you buy, so that you have complete knowledge of its nutritional value.
Himalayan Mono-Floral Honey
This Honey is primarily from the nectar of one specific type of plant species where the minimum pollen content of the concerned plant species is at least 45% of the total pollen content. At Himalayan Essence, we bring you Mono-Floral Honey from the unique nature-scapes of the Himalaya.
Himalayan Wild Cherry Blossom Honey
The Himalayan mountains are a sight to behold when the wild cherry blossoms bloom in the autumn months of October and November in shades of pink to white, and all the hues in between. Much as humans may rejoice at the spectacular sight of the beautiful cherry blossoms, the Apis Cerana Indica loves the flowers much more! Feeding voraciously from the millions of cherry blossoms, tens of thousands of honeybees are found swarming the trees, busy collecting nectar and pollen for their wintering, in the process, pollinating the cherry blossom trees.
Himalayan Horse Chestnut Honey
The Himalayan Horse Chestnut fruit is, ironically, as inedible for humans as it is for horses. But the hordes of Langurs and Rhesus monkeys that bounce off the Himalayan tree-tops love it! It flowers between May and July and the beautiful white and pink blossoms swarming with pollinating honeybees busy collecting nectar and pollen for their naturally produced summer honey hoard.
Himalayan Mandarin Honey
The golden, sweet, tangy Himalayan Mandarin has a rich orange-like smell. Harvested just before winter sets in, the trees bloom in summer with sweet-smelling, white flowers which are pollinated by the honeybees. The naturally produced Mandarin Honey is light golden to amber in colour and has a unique aroma of oranges. Himalayan Mandarin Honey is high in antioxidants, vitamins and minerals and is an effective antibacterial agent.
Himalayan Citrus Honey
The Himalayan valleys are formed by tempestuous mountain rivers originating in the high Himalayan glaciers. Astonishingly, many high Himalayan valleys have a humid, tropical climate during summer months and the villages along these rivers have abundant citrus fruit orchards, growing lime, lemon, malta and oranges, which provide honeybees with a rich source of nectar and pollen resulting in the naturally-infused Citrus Honey.
Himalayan Buckwheat Honey
Buckwheat is a pseudo-cereal because the culinary use of its seeds is the same as cereals owing to their composition of complex carbohydrates. Buckwheat is a short-season crop, often used as a cover crop to add nitrogen to the soil. Sown late in the summer and harvested in late autumn, its sweet-smelling flowers can be white, yellow or pink and are much loved by the honeybees. Naturally produced Buckwheat Honey is rich, dark and malty, and high in vitamins, antioxidant and antibacterial properties.
Himalayan Multi-Floral Honey
Also known as Wildflower Honey, Himalayan Multi-Floral Honey is derived from the nectar of many types of flowers and the pollen content of any plant species does not exceed 45% of the total pollen content of the honey. Apis Cerana Indica colonies find ample foraging in the mountain forests and meadows, feeding off of the wildflowers, sunflowers, asters, daffodils, geraniums, salvias, dahlias, hollyhocks, rhododendrons, poppies, zinnias, impatiens, calendula, lavender, mint, basil, sage, thyme, fennel, common barberry, etc. Naturally produced Himalayan Multi-floral Honey is mild in taste.
Himalayan Wild Forest Honey
Extracted from the significantly larger, vertical combs of the giant honeybees, the Apis Dorsata, and the world’s largest honeybee, Apis Laboriosa are the chief producers of Himalayan Wild Forest Honey. The Apis Dorsata is found mainly in the dense forests of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, where ample foraging is available through the year. Apis Laboriosa colonies can be found at heights of 10,000 feet above mean sea level and the bees forage in alpine meadows and forests as high as 13,500 feet.
Know Your Honey & Honeybees
The Alchemy of Honey
Bees produce Honey as their food source. They collect nectar, which is 30% to 90% water, from flowers and stored in the bee’s honey stomach where it is digested and converted into Glucose + Fructose. The bee induces a chemical change to the nectar by adding an invertase enzyme produced via its salivary glands. This invertase enzyme reduces disaccharide sugar into Glucose + Fructose. The honey produced, as a result, is raw and the bee stores it in a hexagonal cell of the honeycomb. This raw honey is ripened by fanning of the bees’ wings to evaporate the water content. When water content reaches 17% – 18% it becomes ripened honey. Once the bees seal the honeycomb cells with wax, the honey is deemed ready to be extracted and consumed.
The Superstar of the Himalaya
Honeybees are responsible for pollinating more than 80% of the world’s flowering flora, a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, etc. The Apis Cerana Indica flies 80,000 kilometres and collects floral nectar from over 2 million flowers to produce 1 pound of honey.
Apis Cerana Indica, the Indian honeybee, is known for its highly social behaviour, reflective of its classification as a type of honeybee. It usually builds multiple combed nests with a small entrance, presumably for defence against invasion by individuals of another nest, in tree hollows, and can adapt to living in purpose-made hives and cavities. Their nesting habit means that they can colonize in temperate or mountain areas with prolonged winters or cold temperatures. The diet of this honeybee species comprises mostly pollen, nectar and water, or honey.
Honey Care
We want you to be able to care for your honey at home and with ease.
Crystallization, or granulation, of raw honey is a natural process due to the spontaneous crystallization of its Glucose content. The first Glucose crystal acts as a seed, speeding up the crystallization in the entire container. The naturally occurring pollen, propolis, and wax molecules also work as building points for the crystals. This honey is also called "Granulated Honey" or "Candied Honey". Honey that has crystallized (or is commercially purchased crystallized) can be returned to a liquid state by warming the bottle indirectly (up to 37°C) in a container of hot water.
Occasionally, a white fluffy film is seen on the surface of the bottled raw honey, like white foam, or marble-coloured or white-spotted crystallization on the container sides. This is called Honey Foam, which is extremely tasty, and it is formed by air bubbles trapped during the bottling process but does not interfere with the quality of honey.