October 17, 2011

Hong Kong Honey - Wing Wo Bee Farm

Hong Kong Honey

You probably wouldn't believe that a 'Blade Runner' city like Hong Kong has its own local honey, I sure didn't at first. I was doing some research on honey as an alternative for sugar and looking for places to buy some quality honey.  We wanted to find alternatives to sugar so we could sweeten food for our little girl without too much worry what with all the bad tales about refined sugar these days.

To my amazement I discovered that there is a little bee farm, Wing Wo Bee Farm, or 永和蜜蜂場, right smack in the middle of Hong Kong, in Shatin in fact, run by Beekeeper Yip Ki-hok since 1983. A real bee farm in the land of skyscrapers! Amazing!

Hong Kong Honey

Finding the honey to buy was not that easy, however. We looked in all the usual grocery stores and did not find a trace of Wing Wo Honey, though there were certainly many different brands of imported honey on sale. This happens to us all the time. These big chain groceries need to smarten up and realize that people want to eat local when they can. Especially as Hong Kong does have some really good local food products.

Finally I called Wing Wo Bee Farm directly and was informed by a nice lady who fumbled through a list (I could hear the papers rustling) for a long while before saying, "Ah, yes! There is one store in your area that carries our honey." Turns out that this store was a chinese style pharmacy/chinese medicine shop. Of course, a pharmacy! Why didn't I think of that? Anyways, that very day we located the store and came home with the prize, a lovely glass bottle of locally produced Wing Wo Honey.

Hong Kong Honey

It tasted delightfully of flowers and fruits, but interestingly enough, really of Chinese flowers and fruits. There was the scent of osmanthus maybe and definitely the taste of lychee and longan. It was fresh, light and fragrant. What a wonderful, unexpected find! We are almost through the jar already and I am looking forward to try their other products, especially their winter honey, a thick almost creamy white type of honey which is a southern Chinese specialty that one hears about all the time.

Alas, this next time we will have to figure out another way to buy the honey as the old building where the pharmacy/chinese medicine shop was located is already being demolished.   Sigh...such is the fleetingness of memories in Hong Kong.

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