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Today our story is about olives.
We will tell you how they are grown and oil is obtained.
Olive oil is one of the oldest and most famous products on earth.
In fact, this staple of the Mediterranean diet has been used for thousands of years
and was especially popular with the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The world produces up to 3 million tons of olive oil per year.
The market leaders are the Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece and Tunisia.
The reason olive oil is so popular is primarily because of the climate.
But it was also influenced by the result of centuries of history.
The first evidence of oil production suggests that it was made as early as 10,000 years
ago.
This is the province of Jaén in southern Spain, part of the autonomous community of
Andalusia.
Even if you have never heard of Jaén, you have probably tried her olive oil.
There are 66 million olive trees in the province.
They provide as much olive oil as all of Italy put together.
In general, olive groves in Spain extend over an area of 2.8 million hectares.
This makes the country the largest exporter of extra virgin olive oil in the world.
Olive oil production here dates back to the second millennium BC.
Andalusia once supplied olive oil to the Roman Empire and was its main producer.
Oil was supplied to all the provinces conquered by the Roman army.
Olive oil helped maintain imperial dominance for centuries because it was not only the
main source of food, it also fueled lamps, served as a medicine, was used in cosmetics
and perfumes.
Olive trees are, in fact, the oldest cultivated fruit trees known to man.
They were able to survive for many centuries in arid, rocky, completely abandoned lands.
And like a Phoenix bird, they were able to be reborn even after being burned.
It is believed that the oldest olive tree in the world grows in Lebanon.
He is six thousand years old.
Nevertheless, it still bears fruit and oil is still made from its fruits.
The olive trees in the province of Jaen are on average about eight hundred years old.
Olive trees are unmistakably recognizable by their gnarled, gnarled trunks and silver-green
foliage that sparkles in the sun.
Foliage color is an example of a plant's clever adaptation.
While the upper side of the leaves is glossy green, the underside is covered with microscopic
silver scales that help the leaves retain moisture.
There are about 700 different varieties of olives in the world.
The most common variety of olives grown in Spain is Picual.
They got this name due to the pointed tip.
Picual olives are today most often grown for the production of olive oil in the province
of Jaén.
This variety produces a lot of aromatic oil with an intense taste.
Each variety of olives has its own unique flavor.
Even olives of the same variety can vary in taste from one plantation to another and from
one harvest to another.
It depends on many different factors: how much sunlight the trees get, how much moisture
they get, how the olives will ripen and how they will be harvested.
All this affects the final aroma of the oil.
These factors influence the production of polyphenols and antioxidants that give olive
oil its flavor and health benefits, such as heart health and immune system support.
Just like wine, tea or coffee, olive oil is sold as a blend of different varieties.
But you can also find special bottles of olive oil from the same variety.
But whichever oil you choose, it all starts the same way - with the extraction of juice
from the fruits of the olive tree.
Olive oil is actually fresh fruit juice, and precisely because it is fresh, it must be
processed very quickly without delay.
For example, we cannot leave orange juice in the pantry and drink it a year later, also
with olive oil.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the highest grade of Virgin olive oil.
It is obtained from fruits at a low temperature without the use of chemicals.
Olive oil must meet a set of physical and chemical standards.
If the bottle says simply "olive oil", then it was produced using heat or chemistry.
It is devoid of color, taste and aroma.
This refined oil is mixed with Virgin or Extra Virgin oil to restore its color, taste and
aroma.
In Jaén, the olive harvest usually lasts from October to January.
The earliest harvest of olives is used to produce premium Extra Virgin oil.
Quality olive oil is a race against time.
The fruits begin to deteriorate as soon as they are harvested.
Therefore, producers try to transport them from the grove to the oil mill within three
hours.
Heat can ruin the flavor of olives, so they need to be chilled as quickly as possible.
To understand what is at stake for these farmers, you need to understand some basics.
These green and dark olives are not different varieties, they are the same olives in different
stages of ripening.
Thus, all olives are initially green, and as they ripen, they darken.
Olive oil is made from fruits at any stage of ripening.
The more mature fruit contains more oil and is milder in taste.
If the olive is green, there is less oil in it, but the aroma of the oil is stronger,
and the taste is rich.
The ideal time to get Extra Virgin oil is when there are both types of fruit on the
tree, i.e. greenish-yellow fruits and olives that have just begun to darken.
The subtlety lies in the fact that olives that have the same color do not always have
the same degree of maturity.
Olives are not a fruit that you can just pick from a tree and taste.
They contain bitter substances that make them absolutely unsuitable for eating.
This is why table olives go through several stages of salting to remove that bitterness.
So how do oil growers know their olives are ready for harvest?
They determine the optimal stage of fruit maturity by color.
In addition, analyzes are made in the laboratory to determine the oil level.
Every manufacturer wants their product to be unique.
Therefore, they are always in suspense: they watch the weather, think whether it will rain
or not, they can stay awake at night thinking about the harvest.
In addition, in 2022, Europe experienced the worst drought in 500 years and made life very
difficult for local olive farmers.
They did not have enough water to ensure a good harvest.
Some of them harvested only half of the olive harvest of the previous year.
In modern times, Spain has not always dominated the market, mainly because most of what it
produced was a mixture of poor quality.
However, the situation changed about 25 years ago, when manufacturers began to invest in
the purchase of modern equipment and the development of new cleaning methods.
Modern olive oil has become better quality and has become much more expensive.
Satellite images clearly show how dry the area has become.
Winter precipitation has decreased by more than a third.
Trees that don't get enough water are much more difficult to grow.
Winters have also become less severe.
And without enough water, trees can't grow.
Because of the drought, the olives break off the branches badly.
This olive harvest has matured earlier than usual, so some growers are having to take
drastic action.
The harvesters are divided into groups.
Each group works with one tree.
They lay the net under the tree so that the olives fall into it, which the workers knock
down from the tree with the help of a traditional pole.
They also use motorized rakes or vibrating machines.
With the help of special harvesters that shake the tree, the ripened olives are shaken off
the trees.
This machine shakes the trees to shake off thousands of ripe olives at once.
With this method, neither the branches nor the trunk of the tree are damaged.
The shake just makes the ripe olives fall to the ground.
Seeing all the effort that goes into harvesting, one can understand why Extra Virgin is so
expensive.
Olives at an early stage of ripening are quite strong on the tree, and it takes great effort
to collect them.
However, the return on these efforts is incredibly small.
So one tree can produce from 20 to 50 kg of olives, and from 10 kg of olives 1 liter of
oil is obtained, this is just one bottle.
More ripe olives produce more oil.
Farmers send their harvest to the processing facilities of the world's largest producer
of extra virgin olive oil, Dcoop.
Here, thousands of raw olives per hour are transported by conveyor belt.
The fruits are freed from leaves and debris.
First, they are gently washed to remove any dirt that has accumulated on the fruit in
the olive grove, after which they are ready to be crushed.
First of all, olives should be checked for taste.
Olive oil obtained by first cold pressing undergoes the least processing.
After all, it is obtained not with the help of heat or chemicals, but by crushing olives
and squeezing the oil.
This makes it the most expensive type of olive oil.
Olives should be split, not crushed.
Pressing is an ancient way of extracting olive oil.
In ancient times, olives were ground between stones such as these.
The paste was then squeezed through woven mats to produce oil.
Such oil is considered the most beneficial for health, as it retains all of its natural
vitamins and antioxidants.
Nowadays, only a few manufacturers make butter in this way.
And this is not the Extra Virgin oil that is sold in the store.
Today, Extra Virgin is produced with amazingly modern technology and under super hygienic
conditions.
In fact, cold pressed oil is just a marketing gimmick because technically all Extra Virgin
oil is cold pressed or cold crushed.
After all, heating is the enemy for the taste of oil.
Aromatic compounds in olives under the influence of high temperatures begin to break down.
Therefore, in fact, the concept of "cold pressing" seems to draw such a romantic image of a Mediterranean
village, where there is a press for olive oil.
But it's time to show how Extra Virgin oil is made in modern conditions.
The first step is grinding.
Inside a rotating stainless steel drum, the fruits are crushed and crushed.
In this way, the machines mix and turn the olives into a thick paste.
The olive paste enters the mixer.
He stirs the paste so that microscopic drops of oil connect with each other.
Manufacturers are closely monitoring this process.
They use a thermometer to make sure that the temperature of the pasta does not exceed 27
degrees Celsius.
The paste is then pumped into a rotating centrifuge where the oil is separated from the cake.
Cake is the skin, pulp and seeds of fruits.
After composting, the cake is used as fertilizer or fuel.
What pours out of this centrifuge is called liquid gold.
And now the time has come when you can try it.
No wonder it was said above that this is fresh fruit juice.
Now in the mouth an incredible amount of sharpness, aromas and a unique smell.
It's amazing!
Dcoop maintains high quality standards.
Here they try to do everything so that every bottle of oil that leaves the factory is perfect.
In the next step, the newly produced oil is immediately stored in huge stainless steel
tanks to limit exposure to oxygen.
The top of the storage is filled with nitrogen.
This is to ensure that the oil always remains fresh.
The oil is stored in the dark at a constant temperature.
Dcoop has the largest storage facilities for olive oil in the world.
One such tank can hold 300,000 tons of oil.
In fact, this is a third of an oil tanker.
The tanks can keep the oil fresh for up to two years.
Each batch of olives has its own flavor.
Then the oil from the tanks is bottled.
So, now you know everything about the final product.
But where does it all begin?
Olives, as they grow, can be grown from the pit, but farmers usually plant young trees
that start life as cuttings.
In the nursery, a cutting taken from an adult tree is rooted and formed as a separate tree.
It takes about 10 years for a tree to start producing a full harvest.
In spring, olives are covered with flowers that require pollination.
As a rule, this work is done by the wind, but butterflies are also happy to help.
From the pollinated ovaries, the olives swell during the summer and turn into fruits.
Meanwhile, farmers monitor their fields for pests that might lay their eggs on growing
olives, destroy leaves, or spread disease.
It is known that with good care, these trees can live hundreds of years.
Olive can grow both in the ground and on the rock, thanks to
a very strong and branched root system.
All these natural characteristics make the olive the personification of stamina, power,
endurance, a symbol of longevity and even immortality.
Oliva, symbolizing rebirth, reminds us that, having gone through trials and releasing the
bitterness of
the past, we will cleanse the spirit and find the joy of life.
That's all.
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