Honey is rich in nutrition, has good health care, health, beauty and other effects, and has been a favorite of the emperors and nobles throughout the dynasties.
According to the "Mystery of the Chinese Court", Empress Dowager Cixi was very picky about eating, and only loved to eat sturgeon when eating fish, because the sturgeon was soft and had no fine spines. To eat rice, you must eat Jingxi rice, which is the highest quality rice that is paid tribute to Tianjin, and is only harvested once a year, and the texture is soft and smooth and white. Nests made of cornmeal and bean noodles must be accompanied by honey. According to the records of the daily use of the empress dowager in the "Jinliang Qing Palace History and Funds", Empress Dowager Cixi's daily diet contained honey, walnut kernels, pine nuts, goji berries, sun-dried dates, sesame oil and other traditional Chinese longevity foods.
According to the records of the Interior Ministry of the Qing Dynasty, Cixi used fine pearls to grind into powder every day, add honey and egg white, and then steamed in a steamer basket, dried and then selected the brightest and whitest ground into powder. She then wiped her body with this powder and added it to the porridge to eat, which she called "pearl royal porridge".
According to historical records, since the Shunzhi period, the honey paid tribute in the imperial palace is mostly black honey from the northeast. Later, high-quality honey was gradually selected from the whole country, mainly in the northern region, as a palace product. However, during the Daoguang years, the honey paid tribute to the court was adulterated, and by the time empress Dowager Cixi was in power at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the counterfeiting technology of honey had been pure, and many florists who had raised bees all their lives could not distinguish between true and false honey. Therefore, Cixi simply issued an edict that honey would no longer be collected from the tribute.
One year, when Cixi went to the Chengde Mountain Resort, when passing through Miyun, because she was staying in the palace late in the morning, the local officials offered many local specialties, including the Chaohe White Honey that Qianlong had once sealed "Amber Honey". Cixi tasted it, and it really tasted very good. But she was still not at ease, so she asked the eunuchs to bring some local honey to the summer resort. It turned out that the eunuch Li Lianying at that time heard a unique way to identify real honey, and he heard a foreigner from a Russian circus who had performed a circus in Beijing say that it was very simple to distinguish the true and false honey, that is, to use a dog bear, because as long as it was fake honey, no matter how realistic the taste and color were, the dog bear could distinguish it in one bite. Even if the real and fake honey are mixed together, the bear does not eat a bite, only pure honey.
Cixi was very interested in this method of distinguishing between true and false honey, and just in time to taste the chaohe white honey in Miyun, she wanted to try the true and false, so she asked Li Lianying to bring some honey. Arriving at the summer resort, Li Lianying ordered some fake honey to be found, and together with Chaohe White Honey, the bear was tested, and sure enough, the true and false were tested. Cixi was very happy, and since then the tribute system of honey has been restored in the palace, and chaohe white honey has also become a tribute in the palace.
The story was passed down for ten hundred years, and chaohe baimi became famous in the capital for a while.
The trademark "Chaohe Baimi", which is exclusively owned by Beijing Aojinda, was donated by Aojinda to the Bee Industry Association of Miyun District as a geographical indication of Miyun.
Due to the perennial use of honey as a health and wellness food, Cixi was still in the charm of the old age. Princess Deling, a female official, mentioned in her book "Records of Imperial Fragrances" that when Cixi was 60 years old, "her skin was white and smooth like a girl's, delicate and smooth, smiling, and her posture was naturally pleasing."
In order to promote beekeeping technology, in 1903, the Qing government also listed beekeeping law as a teaching content of higher agricultural, industrial and commercial industrial schools. This shows the importance attached to beekeeping at that time.