I love interactive food – food that asks you to savour and share and describe. Food that is not just content to be, but that asks you, and those around you, to discuss its being. It’s why I love doing tastings and the J Friend and Co’s Cheese Pairing Honey Collection is, literally, the bees’ knees for a DIY cheese tasting.
J Friend and Co http://nzartisanhoney.co.nz
Three glorious, oozy pots of honey, dripping golden delight onto slabs and slices and smears of cheese. This is a great concept. Get a goats, a blue and a Brie, a pack of J Friend and boosh, a hot cheese-tasting hole in one.
My cheesey friends and I pounced on the board delighting in the recommended matches and loving mixing them up.
These guys do great honey, I’d had the golden clear Beechwood Honeydew so this was a chance to try three more of their artisan range. The next step in my honey-cheese love affair.
J Friend and Co has honey from single hives, allowing us a closer connection to the beekeepers, their localities and of course the bees. So thanks to Derek and his Canterbury and West Coat bees who brought us Kamahi, Ernest in Central Otago with his Wild Thyme, and Lucy and AJ for their Blue Borage honey.
Read more about the beekeepers
Resonant with the flora unique to the surrounds of the hive, each of these honeys is different. Helpfully they come with recommendations.
- Kamahi – to match white mould cheeses sch as Camembert, Brie or more robust varieties like goat’s milk feta.
- Blue Borage – goes with strongly-flavoured cheese such as Stilton, aged Cheddar and Parmesan or pungent washed rind cheeses.
- Wild Thyme – with its strong flavour profile pairs with salty robust cheese such as feta or goats cheese.
This was great fun, honey enhances flavours rather than masking them, rounding out any unwanted bitterness or ammonia. Some might call it gilding the lily, but I find honey wraps the cheese in a golden warmth, lightening and lifting, warming and affirming. Delicious!
A big thank you to my lovely friend Moerangi for bringing this honey box to my attention. And thanks to my sister Ligs for her gorgeous photos.
Life and Cheese 
Glad you enjoyed the combo Lucy. I was quite cynical the first time we did this, but it was amazing how well matched they were.
I know what you mean – when you told me about I thought hmm, maybe… but I was wrong, This was cool. And once my sis had taken her amazing photos, it was a free for all. Most definately will do again.
Great post. Have just gone and ordered the cheese pairing collection for the cheese and honey obsessed other half. Good timing too as his birthday is just around the corner. Thanks for the tip!
Excellent! I hope he loves it, let us know what you think.
Sounds like a good plan. Especially the fun to read part. Non-commercial is nice, but I personally don’t care if the best intfimaoron comes from someone who wants to make money or someone who doesn’t try to make money. I guess I’m not being clear. What I mean to say is that if a commercial blog has the best info, that’s where I go.
Well, yes if I am looking for inirfmatoon to help me write an article or help out a holidaymaker than it doesn’t matter if it’s commercial or not, but what I want to get out of this challenge is to find blogs that are not commercial, and aren’t promoted to the hilt in the blogging circle.
HB4I9C jkauodghszey