No worries =) Castelvetrano is one of those interesting olives for me, personally, in that I'm not a big fan since I prefer the richer, earthier flavor of the

No worries =) Castelvetrano is one of those interesting olives for me, personally, in that I'm not a big fan since I prefer the richer, earthier flavor of the slow-cured (dry-cured are my favorite!) olives, but my wife loves them most of all b/c she doesn't like the earthier olive flavor. So, it's one part plant, one part process that gives them their unique flavor. The olive its self has a bright, crisp flavor with a good buttery profile. The process used for these is an extreme example of the lye-cured process, where they are lye-cured for just a few hours, and then soaked in fresh, cold water for at most a couple of days (changing the water every few hours). Basically, one of the most minimal processing of the olive world. After this, they are generally kept in a lower-salinity brine than other olives, to avoid the "salty bite" of a standard olive. So, the Castelvetrano olives are really an exemplar of how lye can be used to great advantage in curing olives, to create a unique flavor profile.