Khatuna leads us across the field in front of the house.
We are in the bottom of a valley with mature forest stretching up either side of the valley. Behind her house there is a river, which must be massive when the snows melt in Spring.
We pass an open door and I see an old man sitting on a bed shelling beans. Around his feet there is a massive pile of pods. I guess he is Khatuna’s father.
Life is hard here and people grow almost all their own food.
I can’t wait to see the hives but first we are ushered into the house.
Khatuna has put together an amazing spread for us.
Almost all home produced, mostly by the bees.
There are large chunks of honeycomb, sweet honey nutballs made with chopped walnuts and hazelnuts soaked in honey. Then there are chopped apples from her trees, hazelnuts from the forest and of course honey and honeycomb from her bees.
Vodka is brought out for a toast. I thank our host for her hospitality and take a sip before putting the vodka down, hoping no one will urge me to drink more.
(It is homemade, super strong. There’s a Still in the garden, many people make their own spirits in these rural locations.)
I ask to see the hives and Khatuna leads me out of the house and round the back, close to the river. I wonder how high the river gets when the snows are melting. Hopefully, it doesn’t reach the house.
The hives are on boxes in the middle of a large vegetable garden.
Khatuna tells me how she started with 3 hives 10 years ago and now has 66.
‘It was just a hobby to start with but then it started to provide an income for my family.
‘Mostly the bees make the honey from trees in the forest although sometimes I take the hives to alpine meadows way up above the trees.’
She gestures up above the trees, which stretch up to an horizon maybe 500 metres above us.
‘But people seem to prefer the forest honey.‘
The forest honey she produces is medium dark and is a mixture of acacia, lime, hawthorn, chestnut and many other trees for which we could not find the English names.
When you consider there are 177 tree and shrub species found in this region including 35 that are only in the Caucuses then you can see that the honey produced by Khatuna and others like her is unique and different to many of the honeys we sell in our Raw Honey Shop.
I am extremely interested in the mountain honey and ask her more about this. High mountain honey is quite rare and has a very fine flavour – coming from the Apine meadows with multitudinous flower species. The heavenly scent and vivid colours of these natural botanical gardens are amazing (I visited one in Greece in the Spring, the air was alive with bees and the minty scent of the flowers almost made my eyes smart).
I hope to bring some of this mountain honey from Georgia next Spring – possibly sooner.
Khatuna is really happy with her beekeeping enterprise. She doesn’t plan to expand massively. Most beekeepers in Georgia produce honey on a similar scale. It gives her some income to buy little extras for her family.
Her husband shows me around the garden, including the Still, which is bubbling away, with the alcohol dribbling out into a bottle.
Then we go back into the house and Khatuna pours Turkish coffee – extremely strong – into small cups.
Suddenly Gabriel the priest and Omar are gesturing and saying ‘ we need to get moving’.
I think they are worried about driving along these narrow and potholed tracks in the dark – totally understandable.
However, it turns out we are stopping at an outdoor restaurant by the river.
Plate after plate of food arrives at the table.
Sliced cucumber and tomato salad with a flavour you just don’t get in the UK.
A range of cheeses – similar to Greek cheeses. A crumbly white one, similar to Feta and hard goat cheeses.
Trout, freshly caught in the river and barbecued over wood. There’s khinkali, twisted knobs of dough filled with meat or vegetable fillings.
And flatbreads, made over the barbecue.
Mr Ramaz produces a giant beer bottle, full of homemade wine.
Again there are many toasts.
Then suddenly we all get up and it is back into the vehicles and bumping down the road again.
We stop briefly in a village on the way back and Tamta and I return to the Mr Ramaz’s car from the 4 x 4.
Quickly Gabriel shows us his church. Small but ornately decorated with icons of Saints including St George fighting the dragon.
Goats gambol around the church and Gabriel feeds them with branches from a tree.
Suddenly I remember that I didn’t get a sample of Khatuna’s honey. But we have gone too far to go back and Mr Ramaz says we can get samples of honey from this region in Tsbilisi.
We head back down the road into a glorious sunset and eventually after about 3 hours to Tbilisi.
It’s straight to sleep again.
What will tomorrow bring?
Raw Honey Man 