The Life of Olives: A Long but Oily Process

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When people think about olive oil they usually associate it Spain or Italy – this mainly due to advertisements portraying elements from either countries. People like to use olive oil for various different reasons, most commonly though for cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps and as fuel for oil lamps.

In North Cyprus olive trees can be seen everywhere, usually with a sunny hillside backdrop, and new trees are often planted as the trees do need dedication to look after and a few have wilted off. Growers are optimistic that they can make the north Cyprus region a serious Mediterranean producer. Olives are some of the common vegetation you will see around the villas in Cyprus, which adds flavour to them.

There are two types of olives: green and black olives, the colour depends on how ripe the fruit is. During the summer months is usually when they appear, the fruit comes out green and as it ripens it turns black. Olive oil is part of the diet of millions of people around the world especially in the Mediterranean region. It is estimated that 4 – 5 kilos of olives are needed to produce a litre of oil.

Not many people know how olive oil is made here is the process: The olives are harvested, usually in the Mediterranean (but there are various other countries that grow theirs), by hitting olive branches with long sticks, which is better for the olives as it forces the ripe fruit to tumble naturally and caught in nets rather than being taken and damaged.

After the harvesting, olives are taken to the mill where they will go through processing as quickly as possible, preferably within 24 hours. During this process leaves and twigs are removed, the fruit is washed, then the olives (pits included) are grounded into paste by using huge millstones or by mechanical means.

Now there are two methods of pressing traditional and centrifuge. Traditional methods are when the paste is spread onto circular mats, then entered into a press which squeezes out the juice and leaves pomace. The juice is a mixture of oil and fruit water, which is left to stand for a hour in which time the oil and water naturally separates. The oil gets siphoned to another vat where remaining particles drift to the bottom, that enables pure olive oil to be decanted into bottles without the need of filtering of any sort. Centrifuge method is a modern way of pressing, first a horizontal centrifugal machine to separates the juice from the pomace, then it is put on a vertical machine which separates the oil from the juice water.

There various oil types which the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) defines the standards for olive oil as follows: Extra Virgin, Virgin, Olive, Olive pomace and Lapante or Strong oil.

October is the time of the olive harvest in North Cyprus, this is usually when early green olive fruits are gathered. In Cyprus olives have been cultivated for four thousand years, he olives are slow grown but long living evergreen takes about ten years to grow to maturity and after that it yields olives for roughly hundreds of years. In order for maximum production the tree will need precise pruning every decade. Not only does this reinvigorate the tree and crop but increase the full capacity with three years.

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