Italy

New Oil

OG

10 Nov 2013 • 2 min read

No, you can't eat these. They taste like #$@%$. But you're welcome to try. Don't say I didn't warn you though.

The olive harvest started last week and we already have the first pressing of the new oil - a completely different animal than the olive oil you're probably used to. But let's start at the beginning.

These olives are small and hold on to the branch very tightly so the trees cannot be shaken, the way they harvest in the south of Italy for example. Instead each branch needs to be combed to get the fruits to fall off. We have two mechanical "arms" that do this, assisted by a fleet of manual combers.

Ramadan and Naim in action with the harvest machines.

The hand combing crew does the finishing touches.

The olives fall down into prepared nets on the ground. In those, the fruits get raked together and branches and large leaves are picked out by hand before they are put into a case where they wait until we take them to the oil mill; usually every couple of days.

It doesn't look like much but once a few olives get together, the weight quickly accumulates.

The first pressing at the oil mill is always a special event for us. We take food, make a little fire and everyone gets to taste the new oil fresh out of the press. It doesn't get much better than this.