Can Honey Have a Singaporean Flavour?

Can Honey Have a Singaporean Flavour? 

We didn't set out to make honey taste Singaporean.

In fact, I'm not sure we knew what a Singaporean flavour was.

Singapore is such a small place, but our food comes from everywhere.

Chinese. Malay. Indian. Peranakan. Southeast Asian. Western.

We borrow. We adapt. We combine.

And somehow, over time, those flavours become ours.

That made us wonder:

Could honey do the same thing?

What does "Singaporean" actually taste like?

There isn't one answer.

Ask ten Singaporeans and you'll probably get ten different answers.

For some, it might be kaya toast and kopi.

For others, laksa, pandan, ginger or chili.

Or perhaps it is the taste of teh tarik at a coffeeshop, watching the tea being pulled between two cups.

That's what makes Singapore's food culture so interesting.

It isn't about having one traditional flavour.

It's about what happens when different flavours meet.

Maybe that's why we love exploring with honey

Honey is actually quite a good partner for this kind of exploration.

It already has sweetness, but it also has its own character.

A darker honey can stand up to something bold and spicy.

A lighter honey might work better with something delicate and floral.

And sometimes, an unexpected combination just works.

That's where flavours like ginger, chili, lime, yuzu, rose and peach came into our world.

They aren't trying to turn honey into something else.

They're simply giving us another way to experience it.

Then there are the flavours that feel very close to home

Teh Tarik was one of those moments for us.

We created it to celebrate Singapore's 60th anniversary.

There was something quite fun about taking such a familiar flavour and seeing what happened when we experienced it through honey.

The tea.

The creaminess.

The sweetness.

The aroma.

Suddenly, something we had known all our lives felt slightly different.

And perhaps that's what we enjoy about food.

You can take something familiar and see it in a completely new way.

We don't think Singaporean flavour has to be traditional

This is probably what we have learnt.

A flavour doesn't become Singaporean simply because it has been here for a hundred years.

Sometimes it becomes Singaporean because we have made it our own.

That's what Singapore has always been good at.

Taking influences from different places.

Combining them.

Adapting them.

And creating something that feels natural to us.

So when we think about our infused honeys, we don't ask whether they are traditional enough to be Singaporean.

We ask a different question.

Does this flavour feel familiar to us?

Does it remind us of somewhere?

A drink.

A meal.

A childhood memory.

A place we grew up around.

Or simply something we enjoy.

Honey gives us another canvas

That's perhaps what we find most exciting.

A jar of honey can begin in Western Australia or Northern Thailand.

The bees and the landscape give it its original character.

Then, here in Singapore, we can take that honey and explore what else it can become.

We aren't trying to erase its origins.

Quite the opposite.

We like knowing where the honey began.

But we also enjoy discovering where the story can go next.

From a Jarrah forest to a Singapore kitchen.

From a Longan orchard to a flavour we recognise from home.

The journey doesn't necessarily end when the honey reaches Singapore.

Sometimes, that's where another part of the story begins.

Perhaps that's what Singapore tastes like

Maybe there isn't such a thing as one Singaporean flavour.

Maybe what makes our food feel Singaporean is the way we bring different things together.

A little from here.

A little from there.

Something familiar.

Something unexpected.

And, occasionally, something that makes us stop after the first taste and say:

"Why didn't we think of this before?"

That's what we love about creating with honey.

The bees give us the honey. Singapore gives us the inspiration.