Honey Tasting Box

When Davide from Apicoltura Vallera showed us this delightful little honey tasting box, we immediately forgot the fateful question "What do I choose?". In fact, it's so pretty that everyone would want it as a gift.

We also have to admit that this selection gave us an idea: a good cheese tasting! If you're one of us, here's what we would have thought of:

- High Mountain Wildflower Honey - 100gr: the honey with the purest and most genuine flavour is perfect to contrast the slightly acidic taste of Murazzano.

- Acacia Honey - 100gr: delicate honey with a vanilla aftertaste, it is the perfect match for Maccagno Biellese, as it is a soft cheese.

- Chestnut Honey - 100gr: this honey has a pungent and bitterish taste and is perfectly suited to Toma del Monte Barro, as it is a sweet but strong cheese thanks to the fermentation traditionally reserved for blue cheeses.

- Linden Honey - 100gr: its fresh and mentholated flavour can only be matched with Montebore, the cheese with a particular shape that has three different maturation times. If the two contrasting characters may give you the idea that they have nothing to do with each other, trust me that after the first bite you will not be able to do without it: the balsamic scent of honey is just what you need to sweeten the intense flavour of the cheese.

Advice from cheese lovers: start with the mildest cheeses and work your way up to the most intense, savouring the heart of the slice first until you get to the rind, which tends to be the tastiest. Oh, and the cheeses should be taken out of the fridge half an hour before tasting.

Fun fact: it is said that by lining up all the varieties of honey, you can see the different shades of the sun.

These honey of this honey tasting box have been produced by Apicoltura Vallera, a Slow Food-approved bee-keeper working in the heart of Monferrato.