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UC Davis to Present the First Honey Sensory Experience

It’s a liquid gold rush at UC Davis’ Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine.  

Attracting international attention, the institute’s Honey and Pollination Center has found its sweet spot in the study of one of the world’s oldest foods and the bees that produce it. In May, the center will host its first Honey Sensory Experience, a two-day immersion in all things honey, featuring experts from around the globe.

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Got Mead Live - Amina Harris

Listen to the show here.  

Amina Harris, the Director of the Honey & Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute at the University of California is featured on the GotMead Live show.

Mead tasted:

  • Vicky – Cherry Wine – Traverse Bay Winery
  • JD – Sweet Mead – Rabbits Foot Meadery
  • AJ – JAO variant made with T58 beer yeast

 

Oh, Honey!

"Oh, honey! Are you better than all the others?  

Make way for the Good Food Awards competition, opening July 6.

This year is the second consecutive year for the honey category. Last year more than 50 beekeepers from throughout the United States entered their honey.

Our Girls Made the News!

Bee time-lapse video shot at UC Davis made it to the National Geographic website!  

Photographer, Anand Varma, captured a time-lapse video of the development of bee eggs to pupae to adults. The film was shot at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis. The video, consisting of 2,500 images, is a must see!

January 20, 2015: A Taste of Mead and Honey

The Honey and Pollination Center hosts a Taste of Mead and Honey  

A celebration of the world’s oldest fermented beverage will take place Saturday, January 31 at the Robert Mondavi Institute on the UC Davis campus. For the second year, the Honey and Pollination Center at the Institute is hosting its annual Mid-Winter Beekeeper’s Feast: A Taste of Mead and Honey. Each element of the dinner is paired with a unique mead, a fermented blend of honey, water and often fruits, yeast, or spices. As more and more craft meaderies open, consumers are learning about this wonderful beverage.

Mead-Making at UC Davis

The second successful mead making course at UC Davis, with more yet to come.  

In case you missed out on the Introduction to Mead Making Course at UC Davis from November 14, 2014 - November 15, 2014 and want access to its contents, you can purchase the whole course online here.

“Imagine,” exulted Ken Schramm, “we are in the Robert Mondavi Institute and we are talking about mead.”

Flavor Wheel for Honey Aims to Educate, Support Standardization

The all new honey wheel at UC Davis.  

"When asked to describe the taste of honey, few would find words beyond “sweet.” Researchers at the University of California at Davis are working to change that with the new Honey Flavor and Aroma Wheel.

The university’s Honey and Pollination Center has devised a tool that provides 100 descriptors to help develop a greater understanding of honey and its many varieties, with flavors ranging from fruity to earthy, spicy to herbaceous.

What's That Flavor?

There's no shortage of interest in our new honey flavor and aroma wheel, like in this article written from the Davis Enterprise.  

“This gives a huge lexicon to the tastes and aromas we find when tasting honey,” said Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollinator Center, which is affiliated with the Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science and the UCD department of entomology and nematology. The Honey Flavor Wheel production involved six months of research and development.

Honey Wheel in the News!

The newly-minted Honey Flavor and Aroma Wheel, developed right here at the Honey and Pollination Center, has been at the center of much attention!  

Amina Harris explains how to taste honey to the Sacramento Bee's Debbie Arrington.

Watch the video here.

Honey Flavor and Aroma Wheel is Complete!

The Honey and Pollination center brought together a tasting panel of twenty, including trained tasters, beekeepers and food enthusiasts worked for nearly a year together with a sensory scientist to come up with almost 100 descriptors!  

Varietal Honey is All the Rage! Learn how to describe your honey tasting experience using the new Honey Flavor Wheel, just published by the Honey and Pollination Center, which gives a huge lexicon to the tastes and aromas we find when tasting honey. The wheel production follows six months of research and development.