OLIVE OIL | How is it Made? (OLIVE: How Does it Grow?)

for as long as I can remember I have always wanted to see an olive harvest and to find out what it takes to make truly great extra-virgin olive oil while you and I are about to do just that welcome to the world's biggest olive oil producer Spain [Music] this is high-end a province of southern Spain even if you've never heard of high-end you have likely tasted its olive oil with over 66 million olive trees this single pocket of Andalusia produces as much olive oil as the whole of Italy in fact Spain produces half of all the olive oils sold in the world olive trees have covered high Ann's hillsides for thousands of years Andalusia was the olive basket of the Roman Empire to every corner the Roman army conquered it brought olive oil made here olive oil was like crude oil to the Romans it helped sustain the Empire's Imperial dominance for centuries because it was not only a primary source of nutrition it was an indispensable fuel for lamps it was medicine it was cosmetics and perfume it really is impossible to exaggerate the monumental importance of olive oil throughout human history both the oil and the olive tree were sacred - to the Romans and to the Greeks and to the Egyptians before them [Music] in fact the olive tree is the oldest cultivated fruit tree known to man it can survive for centuries in dry craggy places completely abandoned and like a Phoenix can even revive after burning the world's oldest olive trees in Lebanon are believed to be six thousand years old and their fruit is still harvested and made into award-winning oil today this tree and high n is thought to be around eight hundred years old [Music] olive trees are unmistakable with your trunks all twisted and gnarled and their silvery green leaves shimmering in the sunlight [Music] the color is actually a clever adaptation while the tops of the leaves are glossy green the undersides are covered in microscopic silver scales to help the leaves of lock in their moisture there are roughly 700 known oliver i ''tis around the mediterranean chronic Habra legend a Sevilla oh he blanca Manzanilla are just some of the ones grown here in spain the most common Pequot is named for its plenty tip and yields a high amount of intensely flavored oil [Applause] when people realize that we have more than 700 different varieties these really enrich the concept that is one of the best condiments this is Francisco vanyo his olive heritage goes back to the 18th century he's one of two separate olive oil producers helping me explore extra virgin here in Spain the other is Lola Segura whose family has grown olives in high-end since 1640 [Music] when you think of olive oil perhaps you think of a particular taste right well each single variety of olive contains its own unique flavor of oil and even then there is a diversity of flavors among the same single variety from one farm to the next from one harvest season to the next it depends on a million different factors how much Sun the trees got how much water how ripe the olives were how are they harvested it all impacts the final flavor of the oil these factors affect the development of polyphenols the antioxidants that give olive oil its flavor and healthful qualities like supporting the heart and the immune system now just like wine tea and coffee you can buy olive oil that is a blend of varieties in fact this is the most common extra-virgin that you can buy in the store but you can also find specialty bottles of single varietals whichever oil you choose it all starts the same way with the juice of the olive fruit seriously that's what olive oil is a fresh fruit juice and because it's fresh we should be enjoying it without delay seriously we wouldn't put our orange juice in the pantry and then drink it after a year why are we doing that with our extra-virgin olive oil there are so many things that we've been getting wrong about extra virgin olive oil myself included so I've made a separate video with all my top olive oil tips how to store it properly how to choose the right olive oil for what you're doing in the kitchen so look out for that one I'm going to put the link in at the end of this video but first let's break down the different grades of olive oil [Music] virgin olive oil means oil that's been extracted from the fruit at low temperatures without using chemicals extra virgin olive oil is the highest grade of virgin to classify as extra virgin it has to meet a set of physical and chemical standards now if a bottle simply says olive oil then it's been will find with heat or chemicals to create an oil that's stripped of colour flavor or aroma that refined oil gets blended with virgin or extra virgin olive oil to add back in the color flavor or aroma [Music] Spain produces all these kinds of oil but we are taking a deep dive into extra virgin in high-end the harvest typically runs from October to January but we're here for the early harvest the most urgent part of the season because these are the olives that are made into premium extra virgin you see making great olive oil is a race against time the fruit begins to degrade the second it's picked so producers try to move it from the field to the mill in under three hours heat is the enemy of flavor so you want to cool your olives down as quickly as possible [Music] to understand what's at stake for these farmers first you need to know some olive basics this green olive and this dark olive these are not different varieties this is the same olive a different stage of ripeness so all olives start out green and as they ripen they get darker olive oil is made from olives at every stage of ripeness in fact the more ripen olive is the more oil it contains but the more mellow the flavor if the olive is green it contains less oil but a stronger more intense flavor now the perfect moment for extra virgin is when the tree contains olives that are both sort of greeny yellow and olives that are just starting to darken [Music] but it gets even more nuanced than that two olives that may look exactly the same color on the outside aren't always at the same level of ripeness on the inside olives are not a fruit you can just pluck from a tree and taste they're full of bitter compounds that make them totally unpalatable that's why table olives undergo several stages of brining to eat out that bitterness so how do producers like Lola and Francisco know when their olives are ready to be harvested Oh sir vamos el momento Optimo demography on viendo el fruto el calor que tiene c epitome goon analysis en el laboratorio para determinar el momento brazo que tiene esta sea tuna al finales nicole este momento Mexico cada Greek food or quiere tener SAA names to operate a ser único that quest for singularity mix this moment especially fraud nada we're mo estar toda la noche in kita visit ando el campo murano el tiempo de verano llovera nervioso linear bios [Music] this harvest the olives ripened earlier than usual so several producers including Lola and Francisco who jump into action the harvesters split into groups with each group working on a single tree at a time they spread out nets to catch the olives as they remove them from the tree either by the traditional Barra motorized rakes handheld shakers [Music] or by a shaker vehicle I tried my hand at lebara pain angle or body strength only 66 million trees to go one down oh but the bhava was nothing I also tried the hand held shaker I want to try this for myself okay okay I feel powerful now okay okay so I'm going to try to get this hook on the branch [Music] when you see the magnitude of the labor that goes into the harvest you see my extra-virgin costs more the olives at this early stage of maturity absolutely cling to the tree and after all this effort the return is shockingly small children are one de vente I think when tequila toffee tuna the DF kilos deity tuna tendremos only tro una botella solo if the olives are more mature you get more oil yes Tamas medoras say viene el Doble justo lovely [Music] the olives are carted from the field to a central collection point [Music] here the stems leaves and debris are sifted away from the fruit the olives are washed with water and now they are ready to enter the mill to be crushed now notice I said crushed not pressed pressing is the antiquated way of making extra-virgin so many years ago olives were ground between stones like this and the paste was then pressed between burlap mats to extract the oil now today a tiny number of producers do it that way and it's none of the extra virgin that you're buying in your stores these days extra-virgin is made with surprisingly modern technology in super hygienic facilities and we're about to go inside one right now okay cut what well on my extra-virgin olive oil it says cold-pressed so what does that mean if it's not pressed that's actually a really good question cold-pressed is just a marketing term technically all extra-virgin is cold pressed or cold crushed heat is the enemy of flavor so those flavor compounds in the olives start to break down under excessive heat but you know cold-pressed sort of conjures up that romantic image of every Mediterranean village having their own Olive Press but wait can I go now there's an audience waiting to see how extra-virgin is made oh right okay action come on guys [Music] the first step is milling inside this rotating stainless steel drum our hammers that crush and grind the fruit the olive paste moves into a Malak sir I love that name the Malak sir churns the paste so that micro droplets of oil coalesce producers closely monitor this stage using a thermometer to make sure the paste does not exceed 80 point six degrees Fahrenheit the paste is then pumped into a spinning centrifuge that separates the oil from the pumice that's the skin flesh water and pits what pours out of that centrifuge is well liquid gold [Music] I have been waiting the whole time the whole visit for this moment let's taste it okay I finally get what they're saying when they say fresh fruit juice my mouth is filling with so much spice so much flavor right now and the smell I wish you guys could smell this it's amazing going back in the fresh extra-virgin goes immediately into storage tanks to limit its exposure to oxygen and from the tanks the oil is siphoned into bottles [Music] Lola and Francisco's Mills are considered small at least compared to this place the world's largest olive oil mill it's run by a co-op that mails bottles and sells oil produced by thousands of farmers this co-op model is how most of the olive oil is produced in Spain [Music] [Music] so now you know about the end product but what about how it all begins Olive how does it grow you can grow a tree from a fresh olive pit but farmers typically plant young trees that began life as cuttings in a nursery the cutting taken from a mature tree grows its own roots and establishes itself as its own tree it can take ten years before a tree will produce a good-sized crop those olives begin as flowers in the spring which require pollination wind typically does the job but the butterflies are happy to help - baby olives grow from the pollinated ovaries swelling up as the summer goes on meanwhile farmers monitor their orchards for pests that might lay their eggs in the growing olives chomp on the tree leaves or spread disease of course if cared for well we know these trees can live for hundreds of years which makes these producers more than farmers they're stewards you know I I noticed so much green around here this does very much right here feel like a forest it is a forest forest we are not only re cultures but at the same time we are taking care of thousand and thousand of actors yes and it's full of life yes [Music] so I've been researching this episode for the past ten months and I have to come clean I'm astounded by how little I knew about an ingredient I use in my kitchen almost every day but I'm also excited about how limitless the world of extra virgin olive oil feels to me now that I've just cracked open the door to it whether it's extra virgin from Spain or Australia or Croatia each bottle is different from the other influenced by the terroir and the unique vision of the producer it's a lot like wine only of course wine gets better with age and extra virgin is exactly the opposite which is why you need to know how to store it and how to choose the right bottle in the first place I've got you covered look out for my companion video you'll be able to click it right here when it goes live until then from the world capital of olive oil hasta la vista [Music]

Channel: TRUE FOOD TV

Views: 996,545

Rating: 4.8515196 out of 5

Keywords: olives, olive oil, extra virgin, olive harvest, spanish olive oil, andalucia, andalusia, jaen, picual, arbequina, milling process, olive mill, nobleza del sur, lola sagra, francisco vano, castillo de canena, nicole jolly, how olives grow, how olive oil is made, polyphenols, ubeda, olive history, agriculture, tree shaker, farming, farmers, olive oil producers

Id: dnzSoMqOWDY

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020