Från oliv till olja

It is the gnarled, slightly pill-like and slightly greenish tree that our dear stone fruits, the olives, grow on. A tree with long life experience as they can live and bear fruit for a thousand years. 90 of the world's cultivated olives are used to make olive oil..

Pruning

Olive oil is unique among cooking oils in that instead of being extracted from dry kernels or nuts, the oil is extracted from the whole fruit. The olives are picked when they are about six to eight months old, which usually happens sometime between October and February. At that time, the green color of the fruit has just begun to turn purple and they are approaching their maximum oil content. Harvesting olives at just the right degree of ripeness is of great importance for the end result both in terms of the amount of oil that can be extracted from the olives but also for the viscosity and taste of the oil. In general, the earlier the olives are harvested, the tastier the oil, the longer the olives mature before they are picked, the milder the oil. Shortly after the olives are picked, they are taken to a mill where leaves and twigs are removed and the olives are then washed. After washing, the olives are crushed and cold pressed to extract a mixture of water and olive oil. The mixture is then centrifuged to separate the water and oil, thus obtaining a product consisting of 100 tasty olive oils.a.

Shilia's olives are characterized by their slightly bitter and spicy taste and fruity aroma. Our olives are hand-picked from Ioanni's father - in - law's olive groves in the coastal village of Thusla in northern Greece. Next to the olive groves is also the factory where the oil from the olives is extracted and bottled. No vintage olive oil is the same as there is a natural annual variation in terms of taste and aroma depending on the year's weather.