Low-Stress Olive Oil Tasting

Low-Stress Olive Oil Tasting, by Paul Armas Lepisto, Director, The Olive University.

Impersonal - This is the (negative) taste characteristic of olive oil which has always struck me as the most bizarre. It simply means an oil which has neither character nor personality, common in manipulated oil (oil which has undergone some sort of chemical and/or heat treatment which neutralizes flaws such as rancidness, the opposite of ‘cold-pressed’). In societies that grew up with mass-produced seed oils, such as sunflower or corn, impersonal oil is essentially the liquid oil they would come into contact with. If flavorful fats were required, then one turned to butter or lard.

The point being, you probably have a pretty good idea what impersonal oil is which gives us a good basis to build upon. Think of tofu. A neutral product which simply lends texture (and provides protein) for any number of flavorful recipes. Manipulated olive oil is similar and, the ugly fact remains, the majority of olive oil.

The good news is that it is very easy to identify a premium olive oil. When you smell it, you will have an overwhelming olive fruit aroma (with any number of other olfactory highlights which the low-stress guide will not stress you out about. You can further enhance these smells by putting some oil in a small container and warming it with your hands. Next, roll your tongue a bit and suck in a small amount of oil drawing in a good volume of air at the same time. The back-center portion of your tongue will now look for bitterness (determined by ripeness and variety of olive), a positive characteristic even if it sounds anything but. Finally, the oil goes down into your throat where you judge its pungency. If it’s particularly sharp, you might cough, but the peppery bite is proof of fresh oil with healthy olives well-processed.

All these sensations will diminish with time, so, for example, if an oil is too ‘peppery’ for you now, wait a month (even, or especially, with an unopened bottle) and it may very well have mellowed. Of course, nothing excites the olive grower more than the first oil with its strong scent and aggressive bite and a piece of bread toasted over the fire drenched in this fluid accompanied by a steak dressed with the same oil.

I have not mentioned oil color because that can be deceiving, however, one charm of fresh central Italian (Tuscany/Umbria) olive oil is its rich green color (imparted, in part, by the king of Italian olives, the Frantoio. An Umbrian might disagree considering the Moraiolo superior, but a Greek fellow might as easily argue for the Kalamata, the French gentleman, the Picholine, etc., etc.). But, nothing beats the Frantoio for a rich green color.

Oops, I just slipped into high stress olive tasting. Ignore the last three sentences. Simply look for rich, fruity smells, a bitter sensation in the middle of your mouth and a ‘peppery’ bite in the back of your throat. And, since your access to fresh super premium oil is restricted at best, even hints of those characteristics should be viewed as a gift from above despite the fact that you may very well have been sold refined, manipulated oil with a slight dose of healthy Tuscan thrown in for flavor (For example, what grocery store sells anything other than ‘extra-virgin’ even though ‘extra-virgin’ is the minority of olive oil produced. Even the next grade down, ‘virgin’, is rarely offered for sale).

But the question remains, are you using olive oil because you’ve heard that it reduces the ‘bad’ (LDL) cholesterol and does no harm to the ‘good’ (HDL), or will you pour it onto your bean soup or pasta as a condiment? For the average Italian, who uses fifteen liters of olive oil a year (in the U.S. it is 0.6 liters), it is a crucial culinary ingredient, which is one reason Italy uses more oil than it produces (and the prime oil regions of Tuscany/Umbria only produce approx. five percent of the total Italian production). Now, consider this thought for a moment; which oil would you guess they export? I would be leaning towards manipulated Tunisian. Oops, another goof. Don’t stress about labeling. Fruity, bitterness, peppery bite. And remember, if a pound of good Tuscan olives has a wholesale price of 50 cents and you need at least ten pounds for a liter of oil, tack on processing, bottling, wholesale profit, retail profit and you have to wonder what exactly is going into your Sam’s Club mega bottles of extra-virgin. Impersonal indeed.

Check out The Olive University web site for interesting and informative insight on Olives, Olive Oil, The Health Properties of Olive Oil, and also Balsamic Vinegar.

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