After a few days of constant Olive picking, we finally had enough to go to the press and get our own oil back. To enable us to do this, we had to have a minimum of 500kg of fruit, and according to a rough calculation we had around 700kg……

We went to the press in Albox, which is about 10 minutes away from where we live and were told to come back later that same day. We went back at 5pm and a forklift truck emptied our olives into a hole in the floor covered with a metal grid.

The conveyor belt then took them up to a weighing machine and sorted out any stray leaves. We actually had just about 500kg, not sure where we went wrong with the calculation but any way, we were still quite pleased……

 

It was then a waiting game whilst the press does whatever it does…..Finally we were told that it was ready and asked us how we wanted to pay…..We were given 3 choices……the first one was that we just chucked all our precious fruit into the communal press and take back just cash payment, or oil, however we wanted our own back so that option had already gone, instead we were told that the press would keep 22 percent of our oil, based on the amount of oil which we would be getting, or alternatively we paid them 49€ and we could keep all our oil……we also had to pay for bottles and cartons to put the oil in.

It was a fantastic moment when we opened up the taps and the first luscious stream of oil came through. For the first time of harvesting, we were thrilled with the end result, and even more thrilled when we tasted it. it is absolutely delicious……fruity, and fragrant with a slight peppery after taste. We will be bottling the oil in 250ml bottles and it will be for sale locally. We have already had 2 shops asking if we would let them have some to sell. If you are interested in purchasing some of our oil, please get in touch with us ……….. olivetreefarmalmeria@outlook.com