A Guided Mead Experience at Moon Under Water

What does mead taste like? It depends on the honey.

We recently took over Moon Under Water in Christchurch for a Guided Mead Experience, putting four quite different meads in front of each guest: Forest, Rhubarb, Canterbury Lavender and Mānuka.

The idea was pretty simple. Rather than give people one mead and try to explain what mead is, serve them four and let them taste the difference.

We started with Forest Mead, made from New Zealand beech forest honeydew. Unlike floral honey, honeydew isn't made from flower nectar. Bees collect the sweet secretions of tiny insects living in the bark of native beech trees. It makes for a soft, easy-drinking mead that tastes sweeter than its relatively low sugar content would suggest.

Next was Rhubarb Mead. It's sweet and smooth up front with a tart rhubarb finish, giving it something of a rosé character. Rhubarb and honey work particularly well together, with enough acidity from the fruit to balance the sweetness of the mead.

Canterbury Lavender Mead took things in a different direction again. Lavender sounds like it could make for a pretty overpowering drink, but that's not how it comes through. Alongside the honey we get poached pear, dried apricot, honeycomb and orange peel, with the lavender sitting over the top.

We finished withMānuka Mead. Vanilla, warm spice, subtle woodiness and the rich flavour of mānuka honey itself. It's probably the easiest of the four to connect back to the honey it came from, particularly for New Zealanders already familiar with mānuka. My favourite comment of the event came from a gentleman from Lithuania. He said that “Whenever Lithuanians gather with intention, mead is served.” After tasting our Mānuka mead his first comment was “this reminds me of home.”

Mead evening at Moon Under Water, Christchurch.

The evening wasn't run as a formal wine tasting. Everyone had the four meads, a bit of information about each and somewhere to scribble their own thoughts. We talked through what was in the glass, where the flavours came from and some of the stories behind the ingredients. From there, a lot of the night was simply people tasting, talking and comparing favourites.

There were plenty of “I didn't know mead could taste like this” reactions. Rhubarb had people talking about how light and balanced it was, while Lavender surprised people who had expected something much more floral. Mānuka brought a familiar flavour into a completely different setting.

There is something else that becomes clearer when you taste meads alongside one another. Honey carries something of where it came from. Flowers, forests, bees and seasons all contribute to what's eventually in the glass. Mead gives us a way of taking those flavours somewhere new.

Moon Under Water was a great place to do it. A pub table, four glasses of mead and a room full of people talking about what they were tasting suited us nicely.

Thanks to Moon Under Water for having us and to everyone who joined us for the evening.

We'll run another Guided Mead Experience again soon. Join our mailing list to hear about the next one: