Show Me The Honey // The Mitte store that’s the bee’s knees
When I first moved here, the city was an absolute stranger. But now, eight years later, Berlin is as familiar to me as a long-time lover you’ve spent so much time with, you could identify them by the sound of their footsteps or the smell of their B.O. I’ve got my favourite vendor at the Maybachufer Turkish market. A favourite place to buy flowers. Favourite place for a whiskey cocktail. I don’t just have a favourite park, I have a favourite place to sit in my favourite park. I travel to Wilmersdorf to eat Boulette, down to Sonnenallee to buy organic carrot-walnut bread, and to the Bergmannkiez for bibimbap. Having go-to places like this is part of what makes a city really feel like home.
One place that holds a special spot in my food-loving heart is my favourite honey store. I’ve been buying fresh, local honey here for years, and I hope this special gem of a place sticks around for a long time yet.
It’s an old-school, no-frills little place on Torstraße that I came across by accident, run by an older couple that’s been keeping bees for more than 30 years. It’s first and foremost a specialty store aimed at beekeepers, so if you need a protective bee suit or, say, a beehive smoker, they’ve got you covered.
For the rest of us, the range of freshly harvested, homemade honeys is the real draw, ranging from light, mild canola honey to golden and fragrant linden honey to dark, intense buckwheat honey. It’s all comes straight from the owners’ hives northeast of the city and goes for €3.90-€4.50, a few euros less than you’ll pay elsewhere. They’ve also got affordable beeswax candles, which I wish I could hold under my nose and sniff all day long, plus bee pollen, honey-based lip balm, body creams, shampoo, soap, and honey wine and liqueur.
Need I convince anyone how great local, small-scale honey is? Both the store itself and its beautiful honey are the very antithesis of over-industrialized, over-commercialized food. Local and seasonal, not as marketing buzzwords, but the real deal.
Imkereifachhandel: Torstr. 18 | Website | Open Tues–Fri 9.00–13.00, Tues–Thurs 15.00–18.00, Sat. 9.00–11.30
Sylee
August 10, 2015You are the best: so glad you keep writing here! Can you believe I’ve spent the last fifteen years eyeing up this place and have never been inside? Soon!
Erland
October 3, 2016I love your blog. I am definitely going to try this honey, and also the camping place you recommend. Can you tell me which vendor to look for on Maybachufer? I am still looking for a reliable source of fruit and veg.
Keep it up with the blog. I think this must be the best one on Berlin in English.
Hilda
October 3, 2016Thank you! My favourite Maybachufer vendor is on the north side of the street (i.e. the side closer to the water), about halfway down the row, facing the water. There are usually two older women, sometimes a man too, selling seasonal veggies and herbs from a local Brandenburg farm. Right now they have good pumpkins but I also like getting rainbow Mangold, yellow beets, and rucola from them.