Tea & Honey: An Evening Tea & Tasting

Lori Stahl. owner of BeeBees All Naturals joined us for a special event earlier this month. Lori maintains several apiaries in Lancaster and southeastern York County, and is an enthusiastic advocate about ways to help the bees, both for the general public and beekeepers. In addition, she is a vendor at the PA Tea Festival. We were pleased to welcome her to the tea room for an Evening Tea that featured honey and tea pairing.


The tea began with a salad of Spring Greens topped with sliced red onion, fresh strawberries, feta cheese and a
Creamy Poppyseed Dressing .
1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. white balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
1 c. olive oil
1/4 c. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. poppy seeds
Add the first 4 ingredients to a food processor. With the processor running, slowly add the olive oil to create a thick and creamy dressing. Add the mayo and poppy seeds and pulse a few times to blend. Store in fridge.

The sandwich medley included Loaded Egg Salad with Honey Mustard, Pepper Ham with Gruyere Honey Muffin, Honey Chicken Salad Sandwich, Pistachio Mascarpone Crostini with Basil and Honey Drizzle, and Apricot Pecan Sandwich on Whole Wheat. (Can you spot the little bee shaped cutout on this sandwich?)

The next course featured an Apple Scone served with Cinnamon Honey Butter and a bowl of Orange Blossom Honeyed Grapes. Both the cinnamon honey and the orange blossom honey were from Lori's wide range of delicious natural honey.                                                                   Orange Blossom Honeyed Grapes To prepare the grapes: Mix 2 lbs. grapes, washed & pulled from stems with 2 Tbsp. Orange Blossom honey, 1 tsp. brandy and 1 - 2 Tbsp. freshly chopped mint. Toss together and allow to blend several hours or overnight.                  

Dessert included a medley of treats: Wildflower Honey Pecan Bar, Bee Nutty Chocolate Chip Cookie, and Apple Pecan Baklava. Follow the links for two of the desserts, recipes from the National Honey Board.

Following the tea, there was a sampling of a variety of teas paired with flavorful honeys. Our guests sampled Chunmee Green Tea paired with Vanilla Honey. The Lemon Herbal Tea was paired with a Lavender Vanilla Honey. Eight Treasures (black and green tea blend with strawberry and pineapple flavor) was paired with Orange Blossom Honey while the Blue Lady (black tea with strawberry, kiwi, and coconut) was paired with Raw Honey, and finally, the Peaches and Ginger was paired with a Cinnamon Honey. Special thanks to Lori for supplying the honeys to be paired with this variety of teas from The Rosemary House. In general, the addition of the honey sweetened the tea and highlighted a more pronounced flavor to the teas.