About Golden Ora

Ko Maungahiha te maunga
Ko Oweka te awa
Ko Pōtaka te marae
Ko Te Whānau a Tāpaeururangi te hapū
Ko Ngāti Porou te iwi

Tēnā koutou. Ko Aschel tōku ingoa. My ancestors and I come from Pōtaka, on the East Cape of Aotearoa — my family's home for at least five generations.

The place

Pōtaka is where I had my 21st birthday, celebrated at Pōtaka marae. Our farm is where I spent holidays as a child visiting my grandparents, and it's where my dad still lives today, in the same house my grandmother grew up in — though when she was little it sat on the other side of the stream.

My grandmother's first language on this land was te reo Māori. My grandfather hunted these hills and my dad still does. On holidays, my aunts and uncles would gather around the piano and sing together. This land isn't a source or a supply chain. It's where my family has always come home to.

The mānuka forests that produce Golden Ora honey are the same forests my family has always known. The bees work the same blossoms, the same hills, our children swim in the same stream, and the same light that hits the East Cape first every morning — the first place on earth to greet the sun.

The honey

Every batch of Golden Ora is harvested by hand and stored in a temperature-regulated facility to preserve its raw properties. We had it independently laboratory tested and certified at MGO 519+ — therapeutic grade, and well above what you'll find on supermarket shelves.

That number matters. Most mānuka honey sits between MGO 80–250. At 519+, Golden Ora is in a different category — genuinely potent, bioactive, and effective. Not a wellness trend. A tested and certified product from a specific, known place.

Each jar is finished by hand with a wax seal before it leaves us. It's a small thing, but it matters. Every Golden Ora jar arrives the way it left Pōtaka — with care.

Why skincare

I had good skin for years. Then I didn't. I tried a lot of things, and what actually helped restore my skin's balance was this — my family's raw mānuka honey. The redness settled. Things evened out. And I kept thinking: how extraordinary that the thing that helped me came from my own whenua, made by my own people.

That's why Golden Ora exists as a skincare product. Not because it was a gap in the market. Because it worked, on me, and I wanted other people to have access to it.

What we believe

We believe in reciprocity — between people and land, between taking and giving back. Nourishing your skin with something that comes from a nourished place. Caring for yourself with something made by people who care deeply about where they're from.

Golden Ora is our way of sharing Pōtaka with the world — its honey, its history, and the generations of people who have loved this land. 

Nō te whenua, mō te tangata. From the land, for the people.