Olives: From Tree to Oil
Messinia, the southwest corner of the Greek Peloponnese is home to both ourselves in the winter of 2017/18 and to the world's best olives. Fundamental to their life over three millennia, the Greeks have more than mastered the art, the science and, quite recently, the technology of olive oil production.
Greek Vassilis and Nigerian Helen own an olive orchard near the tiny village of Mystraki; they also harvest olives for friends and neighbours. We met them at work: Vassilis with the chain saw, lopping olive-laden branches; Helen using a petrol-engine driven device which stripped olives (and leaves and small twigs) from the branches. The olives flew in all directions, landing on large mats laid on the ground to catch them.
Olives from the mats were then emptied into sacks, each of which would be filled to about 50 kg. This is the way that olives are now gathered from the trees throughout Greece.
Later, we were able to visit an olive mill (the Greeks call it a 'factory') where sacks of olives wait to be emptied into a giant German machine which disgorges both extra virgin olive oil and the sludge of olive pulp. This takes about 90 minutes, with most of the time being taken to produce an olive mash prior to it being spun in a centrifuge where the oil is forced out under enormous force.
We learned that typically it takes 3 olive trees to fill one 50 kg sack; 20 sacks of olives weigh one ton and were producing about 150 kg of oil this year. This is a low figure because the weather has been so dry; yields of 200 kg or more have been more common. The mill takes 9% of the oil in payment, or the orchadist can pay €3.5 (£3) per kilogram to keep that 9%. An example: 75 trees would produce oil worth about €650 at the mill.
All the orchards are small, scattered and family-owned. Each and every village has its own olive mill and much of the oil is used by the family, there being few signs of large scale commercial activity. It is said that any surplus oil is collected and sold to Italy to strengthen and improve its weaker and inferior oil. But this may be just apocryphal (itself a Greek word)!
Greek Vassilis and Nigerian Helen own an olive orchard near the tiny village of Mystraki; they also harvest olives for friends and neighbours. We met them at work: Vassilis with the chain saw, lopping olive-laden branches; Helen using a petrol-engine driven device which stripped olives (and leaves and small twigs) from the branches. The olives flew in all directions, landing on large mats laid on the ground to catch them.
Olives from the mats were then emptied into sacks, each of which would be filled to about 50 kg. This is the way that olives are now gathered from the trees throughout Greece.
Later, we were able to visit an olive mill (the Greeks call it a 'factory') where sacks of olives wait to be emptied into a giant German machine which disgorges both extra virgin olive oil and the sludge of olive pulp. This takes about 90 minutes, with most of the time being taken to produce an olive mash prior to it being spun in a centrifuge where the oil is forced out under enormous force.
We learned that typically it takes 3 olive trees to fill one 50 kg sack; 20 sacks of olives weigh one ton and were producing about 150 kg of oil this year. This is a low figure because the weather has been so dry; yields of 200 kg or more have been more common. The mill takes 9% of the oil in payment, or the orchadist can pay €3.5 (£3) per kilogram to keep that 9%. An example: 75 trees would produce oil worth about €650 at the mill.
All the orchards are small, scattered and family-owned. Each and every village has its own olive mill and much of the oil is used by the family, there being few signs of large scale commercial activity. It is said that any surplus oil is collected and sold to Italy to strengthen and improve its weaker and inferior oil. But this may be just apocryphal (itself a Greek word)!
