The history of mead dates back 20,000
to 40,000 years and has its origins on the African continent.
The modern honeybee can be traced back to just over 1 million years
ago, The honeybee has always gathered nectar and pollen
and it has been engaged through the millennia in a battle against indigenous
yeast.
Low sugar content syrups such as nectar can experience spontaneous fermentation
as a result of the action of wild yeast.
This is not beneficial for the honeybee, since it needs the sugars of
the nectar for its metabolism and life cycle.
The bees learned through the millennia that by drying the honey they
could make their much-needed honey
less and less suitable for fermentation by native yeast.
the battle raged on and some indigenous yeasts became osmotolerant,
i.e. they could survive in environments of high osmotic pressure.
The surviving yeasts became ideal yeasts for wine and beer fermentation.
If we now fast-forward almost one million
years to somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago,
we have the first indication of man's knowledge of mead. As nomadic
peoples wandered out of Africa and into the
Mediterranean they took with them bees, honey and, unknowingingly, osmotolerant
yeasts.
Wild, indigenous yeasts, were responsible for the fermentation of wine
grapes -
a practice which started in the Mediterranean some 14,000 to 34,000
years later.
Not until the time of Louis Pasteur, in the mid 1800’s, did man
become aware of yeast as the life form responsible for fermentation.
The origins of mead can be traced back
to the African bush more than 20,000 years ago.
Feral bees were well established, elephants roamed the continent and
weather patterns were seasonal, as they are today in Africa.
Extreme conditions of drought during the dry season, and torrential
rains in the rainy season were common.
This weather pattern would eventually cause hollows to rot out the crown
of the Baobab and Miombo trees,
where the elephant had broken branches.
During the dry season, the bees would nest in these hollows, and during
the wet season the hollows would fill with water.
Water, honey, osmotolerant yeast, and time and viola - a mead is born.
Early African bushmen and tribes gathered not only honey, but also mead
and as successive waves of people left Africa they took with them some
knowledge of mead and mead making.
Eventually mead making became well known
in Europe, India and China.
But mead making died out as people became urbanized.
. Honey was prized throughout history, it was often available only to
royalty.
Somewhere about 1300 A.D., the Italian voyager Marco Polo (1254-1324)
returned from the Spice Islands with sugar cane.
This inexpensive source of sugar became dominant and honey went underground
- well almost.
The tradition of mead was sustained in the monasteries of Europe.
The need for ceremonial candles made of beeswax necessitated managed
bee colonies
and surplus honey was used to make mead, which was enjoyed by the monks
in their more secular moments.
There are monasteries in Great Britain today that have over a 400-year
tradition of mead making.
Prior to the mechanized extraction of
honey, the honeycombs were simply crushed to remove the honey.
This left loads of honey laden, crushed beeswax which could most easily
be processed by rinsing the honey
out of the wax with warm water. And what became of the honey water?
Mead, of course.
Mechanized extraction meant less left over comb and less honey water
for mead making and a general
decline in the craft. Since the mid 1800’s mead making has survived
as an artisan craft void of large scale commericalizaton.
