Pua-ā-Tāne Wild Forest Honey

Pua-ā-Tāne: Award Winning Honey

Our Pua-ā-Tāne Wild Forest Honey was a finalist for the 10th Black Jar International Honey Contest held in Asheville, USA in 2021, reaching the Top 30 out of hundreds of honeys from countries across the globe.

This wonderful honey also won a Bronze Medal in the Outstanding Food Producers Awards 2021 in New Zealand. Pua-ā-Tāne – an award-winning honey!

Pua-ā-Tāne – What Does This Mean?

Our forest in Te Urewera is a forest that covers a range of altitudes, soil types and climates. The vegetation is not homogeneous – no two areas are really the same, although there are species that commonly occupy different parts.

Further, our indigenous forest trees are renowned for not flowering every year or in clear patterns over time. This makes for outstanding diversity in the honeys that can be harvested from these forests – unique honeys each year from different parts.

We celebrate this diversity and uniqueness in our Pua-ā-Tāne Wild Forest Honey.

Pua is the Maori word for flower, blossom or seed and so denotes the essence of life, flourishing and fertility. Tāne is our God of the Forest. He descends from Rangi, our Sky Father, and Papa, our Earth Mother. In our stories of origin, Tāne begat all life in our forests, including all trees, birds and insects, so we see our forests and all in it as his offspring or reflection.

Thus, our fusion of honeys from our forest trees, as the bees make it, has been named by our elders and forest experts as Pua-ā-Tāne – as a reflection of the essence of the life and bounty of our forest.

Pua-ā-Tāne: What’s In This Honey?

Each season gives a unique vintage of Pua-ā-Tāne Wild Forest Honey that can (but does not always) include:

• rewarewa, a special honey tree on our forest hillsides and edges that gives anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties
• tawari, a unique honey tree in groves deep within our forests and high on mountain ridges, that lightens the taste and colour of this forest honey fusion
• tawhero, a common honey tree on mountain spurs and ridges that gives a stunning sweetness to our honey
• hinau, a honey tree from the early season
• kanuka, the cousin to the manuka tree, packed with anti-biotic and anti-oxidant properties
• and, last but not least, world-famous manuka with all the special health-giving properties it is renowned for.

Pua-ā-Tāne: honey reflecting the bounty of the god of the forest.

Pua-ā-Tāne: How Do You Use This Honey?

Pua-ā-Tāne Wild Forest Honey is ideal for all uses of honey – as a daily elixir for good health in drink or straight from the jar, as a spread on toast or bread, for flavouring and enhancing sweet and savoury dishes in your cooking. We use Pua-ā-Tāne every day for our cool and hot drinks – with lime or lemon, tea or coffee, keeping us in great health throughout the year.

Its taste layers the floral sources of our forests, echoes the diversity of Te Urewera and promises the goodness that only pristine indigenous forest can offer. Its uncanny – it can even leave you wondering just could a simple honey pack so much, and hey, just where on this planet does this honey come from…

Pua-ā-Tāne: Where Does This Honey Come From?

For our first edition of Pua-ā-Tāne we have chosen to harvest from a remote site called Ohāua-te-rangi in the upper reaches of the Whakatāne River. These apiaries are long distances away from domestic and extensively farmed areas, so that we know we will get honey mainly from forest flowers. To look after these hives, our beekeepers travel by horseback up to two hours each way, so it’s a fun time for them on those days! We treasure the opportunities presented by chasing Pua-ā-Tāne honey to keep connected with our river, with our forest and with the places of abode of our ancestors.