Portland, Oregon

From Hive to Palate

Honey is not one flavor. It is hundreds — shaped by the flower, the season, and the hands that harvested it. I teach people to taste the difference.

Book a Tasting About the Practice

A honey sommelier pouring honey into a tasting glass beside a tray of prepared samples

What I Do

Three ways to work together

Private and small-group sessions

Guided Tastings

A structured tasting walks a room through six to eight honeys — reading color, aroma, and texture the way a sommelier reads a flight of wine. Guests leave able to name what they're tasting and why two jars from the same county taste nothing alike. Suited to dinner parties, clubs, and small celebrations.

Typically 6–12 guests · 90 minutes · hosted at your location

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Sensory analysis and quality assessment

Producer Consulting

Formal sensory evaluation for beekeepers and packers: identifying floral source, catching fermentation and off-notes before they reach a customer, and building the vocabulary to describe a harvest accurately on a label. Useful for competition preparation, batch selection, and quality control.

Single-batch assessments or ongoing seasonal review

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Menus, sourcing, and staff education

Chef & Restaurant Pairing

Honey deserves better than a squeeze bottle by the tea station. I help kitchens, cheese counters, and bars choose varietals that actually serve the dish, source them from producers worth naming, and train front-of-house staff to talk about them with confidence.

Menu consultation, sourcing, and staff training sessions

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The Practice

Trained to taste, methodically

Italy maintains the longest-running formal training in honey sensory analysis in the world — a three-level program built on the same rigor as wine and olive oil evaluation. Level III is the professional tier: the qualification to judge competitively and to assess honey on behalf of producers.

Curious what your palate has been missing?

Tastings book a few weeks out. Consulting work is scheduled around the harvest calendar — the earlier you get in touch, the better.

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