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On urban US supermarket shelves virtually every bottle of olive oil advertises itself as "virgin" or the "even better" varieties ("extra virgin", "first cold pr

• tiagod 4y ago
  I live in Portugal where most olive oil is good quality. The taste and appearance among good olive oil varies wildly and the super-premium ones will usually taste quite different from standard decent quality supermarket extra virgin.
  • VBprogrammer 4y ago
    I lived with a Greek flatmate for a while. By far the best olive oil I've had was from their family owned olive grove. Usually brought back from his trips home in reused milk jugs.
    • ericbarrett 4y ago
      There used to be a vineyard in Lake County (CA) that made small-batch olive oil from trees on their estate. Sadly, the trees were destroyed in a fire a few years ago. I'll never forget the taste; it had a very strong olive flavor and was so acidic it actually felt spicy on your tongue. Have never found its equal in a store, no matter how exotic and/or pricey.
      • disillusioned 4y ago
        A great oil finishing with a strong black pepper taste is fairly achievable if you know where to look. Zingerman's Mail Order does a phenomenal job of sourcing olive oils like this but also of specifically calling out the tasting notes and the differences in their options. Two that they have that specifically hit this spiciness you're looking for: https://www.zingermans.com/Product/petraia-olive-oil/O-PET https://www.zingermans.com/Product/petraia-olive-oil/O-PET https://www.zingermans.com/Product/la-spineta-olive-oil/O-SPI https://www.zingermans.com/Product/la-spineta-olive-oil/O-SP... But in my experience, their live chat or phone service is absolutely amazing at guiding you to a great option, too.
        • sithadmin 4y ago
          Zingerman's product selection is great, but their customer service is truly next level. I send folks gifts via Zingerman's frequently, and Zingerman's sends me random unsolicited gifts in return. I don't know how I couldn't continue to patronize them.
      • elorant 4y ago
        Early harvest olive oil is like that. It’s from olives that aren’t ripped so the flavor is spicier. It’s quite expensive too; two to three times the price of the normal one.
      • colechristensen 4y ago
        I went to farmers markets in the Bay Area and was able to find that kind of spicy olive oil easily enough. If there’sa grumpy old man selling oil, tell him what you want.
    • 3pt14159 4y ago
      My default these days in Canada is Greek or Chilean olive oil. I've lived in Cyprus for almost half a year. I know what good olive oil tastes like, and yes, the grocer olive oil back home in Canada isn't as good, but it's way better than the local or even Italian stuff. It tastes like real olive oil. I don't know what is going on with Italian olive oil these days, and maybe I've just had a bad couple batches in a row, but it will take a long time for me to trust it again. It almost always tastes diluted with other oils to my pallet.
    • JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
      I am so envious of you right now, to have even tasted this.
    • tiagod 4y ago
      Yeah, all I've got is unlabeled jugs of oil a friend pressed himself
  • vasco 4y ago
    I can confirm, we have a single huge olive tree in a small piece of land my grandpa bought in the 80s to have extra food and this single tree gives 3 people enough olive oil for the whole year (portuguese standards, so cooking with it plus codfish "drowning" in it on the plate). We hit the tree so they fall, then take it to a guy that presses it and you have your olive oil. Definitely completely different from store olive oil, and definitely on a completely other league to what I had in the US.
• armchairhacker 4y ago
  I get California Olive Branch “100% California” EVOO because I heard it was genuine. Do you know if this is true, and if not, which brands are? I only add like 1tsp of oil to the pan when cooking so I can justify using the more expensive brands, though i don’t really taste a difference
  • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > I get California Olive Branch “100% California” EVOO because I heard it was genuine. Do you know if this is true, and if not, which brands are? Broadly speaking, get what you know and what's close. Have a friend in Italy, Greece or Spain? Get it from them. Live in California? Get it from there. The longer the supply and trust chains for something like olive oil, the higher the chances of funny business.
    • mmmpop 4y ago
  • jfengel 4y ago
    Once you heat it, the differences become negligible to nonexistent. Good-quality oils are most important in raw uses, such as dips and salad dressings. It's a hassle to maintain a "cooking olive oil" and a "raw olive oil", so the worst you're doing is wasting a tiny bit of money for the convenience of keeping around just one bottle. As for the particular brand you mention... yes, it's very well reputed. Being produced in the US, there are fewer opportunities for fraud that occur when importing mass-produced oils. (Imported artisan oils are often extremely good, but pricey because of the overhead.) You probably would notice the difference if you were to compare it to other brands -- especially when the bottle is newly opened. In cooking... eh, I just use a bottle of whatever's cheap.
    • derekp7 4y ago
      I think that is the brand I picked up at Walmart one time. And I really did notice the difference -- it had a more buttery texture, and was delicious on my salad.
• killjoywashere 4y ago
  • zwieback 4y ago
    true words, but mentioning the move from a tropical island to SV is its own kind of virtue signaling
    • killjoywashere 4y ago
      Fair, I edited that out.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • kareemm 4y ago
    I dunno. If you taste olive oil from a trusted source (like at the grove where the olives are grown and perhaps pressed), and compare it with $random_storebought_brand, there's a major difference in taste. The difference doesn't make it objectively better for you, or even better tasting. But in a world where the phenomenon of olive oil adulterated with other oils is well documented[1], it's a legitimate question to ask why the small batch oil tastes different from the big box version. 1- https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/seven-ways-to-tell-the-difference-between-real-and-fake-olive-oil-article https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/seven-ways-to-tell-th...
    • dakom 4y ago
      Gotta agree with this. I eat plenty of indestructible processed foods and whatnot, but had a friend who would harvest olives and have them pressed into oil. It's truly a different taste. Another Middle-Eastern staple that fits this trend is Hummus. I have never had store-bought that tastes the same as fresh (I mean fresh fresh, boiled properly from source, not from canned chickpeas) That said, I do think the parent is also right. Plenty of people are virtue signaling because it's trendy, not because of the actual difference.
  • 4y ago
• zwieback 4y ago
  Hmm, I recently switched from TJ Greek Kalamata to a super-market brand because the former didn't taste good to me anymore. Now I learn that that particular TJ stuff is "authentic" (or "orthentic" as Paulie Senior liked to say) so YMMV.
• deleted 4y ago
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• scottLobster 4y ago
  My understanding is that's mostly an issue with imported "blends" that claim olive oil from multiple sources. Single origin stuff is usually safer, and domestically produced Californian olive oil is usually what it says it is. You can also look for harvest dates and seals from the various olive councils for purity.
  • jancsika 4y ago
    It's trickier than you let on. At least for California, you have to look for the California Olive Oil Council seal if you want to be sure: https://cooc.com/about-the-seal/ https://cooc.com/about-the-seal/ For example: there is a company called "California Olive Ranch." It used to have a popular olive oil sold in a lot of larger grocery stores that had the COOC seal. Then it started to source olives (oil?) from somewhere outside California and blend with the California olives[1]. That broke the rules of the COOC seal-- to have the word "California" on the label you can't blend with non-Californian olives. So the seal is no longer on that bottle, but the name "California Olive Ranch" is obviously on that label because it's the name of the company. Thus, a shopper would be misled by your second sentence and buy an oil with olives and whatever else from imported non-Californian sources. That means the third sentence is also wrong-- looking for harvest dates and COOC seal isn't something that the shopper can do to double check their choice. Rather, that is the only thing they can do to be sure they're getting actual virgin olive oil of sufficient quality (the seal) that isn't rancid (the harvest date being within less than a year). Edit: I don't have a link, but there was a recent COOC fiasco where a lot of the smaller farms got up in arms due to a proposed language change in the requirements for obtaining the seal. Don't remember the details, but it sure sounded like it would have made it easier for a member to blend with some amount of imported olives and still carry the seal. Honestly, I think there's enough intrigue and drama in this topic of finding bona fide olive oil to start a substack subscription thingy if anyone is interested in that. :)
    • abeppu 4y ago
      > At least for California, you have to look for the California Olive Oil Council seal if you want to be sure Is there a ranking of olive oil certifying organizations? I ask b/c I when I googled for olive oil testing, I came across the Olive Oil Commission of California, which apparently both does testing and requires members to also do testing, and California Olive Ranch is still a member in good standing of that one. http://www.oliveoilcommission.org/trusted/ http://www.oliveoilcommission.org/trusted/ Does this mean that even if they sourced olives from outside of California, it still meets some lab tests for pure extra virgin olive oil? If I care more about the "is actually extra virgin olive oil" question than where the olives were grown, I should be satisfied? Also, I'm annoyed that even if multiple parties are doing tests, we don't really see published that "Brand X isn't pure olive oil, according to independent lab", or even "Brands X, Y, Z were tested, and Brands Y, Z are real olive oil". I'm assuming this is for legal reasons?
• ryanwaggoner 4y ago
  I think these fears are overblown, at least based on this 2015 study by the FDA: "The authenticity of 88 market samples of EVOO was evaluated ... with purity criteria specified in the United States Standards for grades of olive oil and olive-pomace oil. Three of the 88 samples labeled as EVOO failed to meet purity criteria, indicating possible adulteration with commodity oil and/or solvent-extracted olive oil." Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286479191_Authenticity_Assessment_of_Extra_Virgin_Olive_Oil_Evaluation_of_Desmethylsterols_and_Triterpene_Dialcohols https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286479191_Authentic...
• _moof 4y ago
  The North American Olive Oil Association maintains a list of genuine olive oils. They send people into grocery stores to randomly buy a bottle of one of the listed brands/varieties and test it in their lab. https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/64-certified-pure-and-authentic-olive-oils https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/64-certified-pure-and-authenti...
  • jeffbee 4y ago
    Is this one of those schisms like exists between USDA organic and California organic? Because your list doesn't include any olive oils I would actually eat, whereas they are all on this list: https://cooc.com/certified-oils/ https://cooc.com/certified-oils/
    • chrischen 4y ago
      According to the OP’s website: > “In 2010, the UC Davis Olive Center, an organization created to promote the sale of California olive oil, published a report funded by California olive oil producers and companies. The purpose of the report was to make news that would discredit their competition – imported olive oils.” https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/olive-oil-fraud https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/olive-oil-fraud So it seems like these two organizations are at odds with each other. But the California study was based on subjective “taste tests” to identify fake olive oils… Big red flag there.
      • jeffbee 4y ago
        That's funny because UC Davis also publishes an annual report for olives, like they do for all other crops, which conclusively demonstrates that nobody can, and nobody has, ever made a profit growing olives in California. So they're boosters on the one hand and realists on the other.
  • yrral 4y ago
    Interesting, from the article: > Does the fact that an olive oil does not have your seal mean that the olive oil is not authentic? > The answer is emphatically no. According to a study conducted by scientists from the FDA in a study published in 2015 that the risk of purchasing a bottle of adulterated EVOO is low (less than 5%). The scientists randomly sampled 88 bottles of EVOO that they purchased from supermarkets and online stores, and did not find a single instance of adulteration I wonder where the opposite fact that I hear on the internet that most olive oil is adulterated comes from.
• lg 4y ago
  In NYC you are spoiled for choice, my go-to is Mani marketplace that periodically gets a batch in from their dad's grove in the Mani :)
• OJFord 4y ago
  > On urban US supermarket shelves virtually every bottle of olive oil advertises itself as "virgin" or the "even better" varieties ("extra virgin", [...] That's interesting, I was thinking (in pure headline reaction) I don't think I've ever seen (in the UK) anything other (w.r.t. virginity anyway) than 'olive oil' and 'extra virgin olive oil'. Never 'virgin' or 'slightly more virgin' or 'supremely virgin'.