Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

U.S. Coffee Championships 2023 Baltimore Qualifiers Results

More than 100 competitors brought their talent to Baltimore to take part in six competitions, and 63 will progress to nationals in April. BY NATE KLOCKBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Photos by Matthew Temple courtesy of the U.S. Coffee Championships Last weekend, my hometown welcomed the U.S. Coffee Championships (USCC) qualifiers with the charm only Baltimore could […]


Joven and Atucún Join Forces to Empower Young Farmers

The two brands have collaborated to create a unique coffee bar and support young farmers in the coffee and cacao industries. BY VASILEIA FANARIOTISENIOR ONLINE…


Medium-sized farms play an important role in specialty coffee

For many consumers and industry professionals, specialty coffee and direct trade are inextricably linked. Building strong and mutually beneficial working relationships between producers and roasters is often seen as a cornerstone of establishing a truly sustainable supply chain. So with this association between specialty coffee and direct trade, there can be a narrative of smaller-sized […]


The Origin Story of Turtle Island Coffee in Vancouver, B.C.

A new Indigenous-owned coffee company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, called Turtle Island Coffee has launched with the goal of exposing more people to high quality specialty coffee and Indigenous…

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

Understanding the Process: Koji Fermentation

Continuing our series on coffee processing, we learn about koji fermentation, a unique process usually associated with the brewing of sake. BY TANYA NANETTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Photos courtesy of Forest Coffee If brewed properly, a cup of coffee can offer countless variations of flavor and aroma. The quality and complexity of these attributes depend on many different […]


Understanding the Process: Carbonic Maceration

Continuing our series on coffee processing, we learn about carbonic maceration—a unique, newer processing method. BY TANYA NANETTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Photos courtesy of Cafe Imports Editor’s note: Check out more entries in our “Understanding the Process“ series here. The rise of the specialty-coffee scene has helped many people understand that talking about coffee as something […]


María Andrée Is Honing Olfactory Skills in Antigua 

A sensorial class in Guatemala at Artista de Café teaches how to use your nose for the ultimate coffee experience. BY JORDAN BUCHANANBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Photos courtesy of Arista de Café Walking into a specialty café in Guatemala, your nostrils are infused with aromas from the best coffees in the country. Your nose recollects the […]


How do you roast coffee for milk?

It’s impossible to deny just how popular milk-based coffee drinks (such as the flat white, latte, and cappuccino) are in coffee shops around the world. According to 2020 data from Project Café USA, the latte was the most ordered drink in the UK, and the third-most popular beverage in US coffee shops. In line with […]

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

Three Questions with Gabriela Parfait of The Good Sourcing

After eight years working for the French green coffee importing company Belco, Gabriela Parfait has launched a coffee-focused company called The Good Sourcing.  The new venture is intentionally small, although…


Oklahoma’s T3 Roasters Completes a Historic Opening

Oklahoma-based coffee company T3 Roasters has opened a flagship brick-and-mortar roastery and coffee bar called T3 Coffee Co., inside a thoroughly remodeled historic building in downtown Collinsville. The building is…


Joven and Atucún Join Forces to Empower Young Farmers

The two brands have collaborated to create a unique coffee bar and support young farmers in the coffee and cacao industries. BY VASILEIA FANARIOTISENIOR ONLINE…


Exploring the Potential of Drones in Coffee Production 

New drone technology has the potential to revolutionize coffee farming from the air. BY VASILEIA FANARIOTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Cover photo by David Henrichs via Unsplash In an ever-evolving technological landscape, coffee producers have begun turning to drones in an attempt to increase efficiency and operations. These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer a wide range of […]

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

minimum dose size?

Jan 31, 2024 |

I use the Hario switch to brew my coffee and am trying to reduce my caffeine consumption. Hence I would like to brew smaller cups of coffee. I am currently using 10g of coffee with 160g of water. (1:16 Ratio) I am wondering if there is a minimum amount of coffee...

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

BY EMILY JOY MENESES
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Feature photo via Unsplash

This week we started our discussion of honey, uncovering how it’s produced, the differences between varieties of honey, and what exactly “raw honey” is. Today, we’re continuing our exploration by turning our attention to environmental concerns.

Though honey has been a café and culinary staple for as long as most of us can remember, the ingredient has come under fire in recent years, with questions of sustainability emerging. So what’s the truth—is honey actually bad for the environment? When uncovering the answer, there are a few things to consider. 

Bee on a pink flower.
While the “Save the Bees” movement has good intentions, it often places emphasis on honey bees—which only make up about 5% of the bee population. Photo by Daniel Dan via Unsplash.

“Save the Bees”: Distortions in Messaging

Chances are that you’ve heard of the “Save the Bees” movement, a call to help preserve and restore bee populations, under the pretense that bees’ pollination of flowering trees and plants is essential to maintaining biodiversity. However, in this article for Scientific American, Alison McAfee, Ph.D., a honey bee researcher and postdoctoral fellow at North Carolina State University’s Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, points out the distortions in the campaign’s messaging and how it’s harming, rather than helping, the environment.

According to Alison, the media disproportionately covers the need for honey bees over native bees, though only about 5% of the global bee population is made up of honey-producing bees. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Americans have taken up honey beekeeping as a hobby, believing it to be a conservation practice. In reality, native bees are the ones at risk of extinction and in need of attention and support. The increased presence of honey bee colonies has also led to increased competition between native bees, with honey bees monopolizing floral resources and taking sustenance away from already-in-decline native bee populations.

A wooden slat in a beehive is removed to expose the honeycomb.
Though questions of sustainability and animal rights have come up for honey production, many argue that honey is still a more sustainable sweetener than sugar. Photo by Bianca Ackermann via Unsplash.

While “Save the Bees“ has good intentions, it’s important to note that honey bees aren’t the only ones in need of saving. If biodiversity is what we’re after, we need to turn our attention to native bees, too.

A Double-Edged Sword

Even amidst concerns around honey beekeeping and honey production, it’s important to compare honey’s effect on the environment to other sweeteners. While honey has its own problems, many still point to the fact that it’s more sustainable than sugar for a number of reasons.

First off, honey production doesn’t require land cultivation the way that sugar production does. Sugarcane fields require acres of land, leading to deforestation and the destruction of thousands of animals’ natural habitats. In addition, honey production emits fewer greenhouse gasses compared to sugar production. It requires less equipment and, typically, less travel; most sugar in North America has to be imported from South and Central America, Australia, and the Caribbean.

Knowing all sides of the debate around honey, you can make informed decisions about your honey consumption. Photo by Emily Joy Meneses.

Making Choices as a Consumer

We can’t tell you what the right answer is for you when it comes to honey consumption—but, knowing the varying sides of the debate, you can make more informed decisions in your everyday life. Stay tuned for future installments of our “Know Your Sweeteners” series, where we’ll discuss molasses, agave, and more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Joy Meneses (she/they) is a writer and musician based in Los Angeles. Her hobbies include foraging, cortados, vintage synths, and connecting with her Filipino roots through music, art, food, and beverage.

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The post Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two appeared first on Barista Magazine Online.

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

Perfect Little Beans

Chinmey Hill Coffee uses specialty-grade beans with zero primary defects (such as black beans or sour beans) and less than five secondary defects (such as broken beans). This is important because primary defects will greatly affect the taste of the coffee. Having zero defects allows the coffee to be the most optimal flavor.

Window for Optimal Flavor

Chimney Hill Coffee ships our coffee the same day it was roasted, so you will receive it before it enters the window of optimal flavor.  This means you’ll never miss the opportunity to enjoy the coffee’s peak flavor.

Coffee Ratings

Coffee undergoes many scoring processes by professionals who achieved their Q Grader certification. Coffee is first graded when it’s green. If there are defects the coffee is determined to be “not-specialty grade”. For those coffees that pass green grading, they are sample roasted and cupped. (Cupping is the official term for critically tasting and scoring coffees. The official cupping form is standard worldwide, and where the 100-point scoring system comes from.) A coffee’s dry fragrance, wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, body, acidity, balance, and overall impression are taken into consideration while uniformity issues and defects, will lower the overall score.

Specialty Coffee

Specialty coffee, coined by Erna Knutsen in 1974, refers to a coffee that receives a quality grading score of 80 percent or higher. While “premium” or “gourmet” seem like they’re synonymous with “specialty,” they simply are marketing terms with no defined standards. Specialty coffees are grown in specific and ideal micro-climates, and have distinctive and unique flavor profiles, with little to no defects.

Third-Wave Coffee

We’re currently in the third wave of coffee. The first wave of American coffee put pre-ground, vacuum-sealed cans in kitchens across America. The second wave started with the late ‘60s introduction of Peet’s coffee (by Alfred Peet) through the proliferation of Starbucks. The third wave of coffee focuses on origin transparency, nuanced flavors, and artisan roasting. The term “third wave” is synonymous with specialty coffee.

Know Your Sweeteners: Honey: Part Two

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