So the picking is finally over! Now we can watch the starting process of the olives being fed into the press.
First of all, it is a case of unloading the crates and sacks from the car(s), and all are put into a bg container until our turn is up.
Then, they are tipped into a large spanse in the floor that sorts the olives – discarding any leaves or other debris that may have gone into the crates – and then sorts them onto the conveyor belt.
The conveyor belt is, as you can see above, quite huge…
A couple of hours of waiting comes next – luckily the press comes with it’s own little waiting room, stocked with magazines and a television (all in Spanish, of course), and just a little way down the road from the press we use is a cafe – which comes in handy when you want a hot drink on a cold day!
Finally, finally, our turn is up! We’ve been sat watching other people come in to claim their own oil, and watch enviously as they collect their oil into bottles.
It is fed through piping, and lands in large, metallic vats which are fitted with a tap (funnels are also provided), so we can begin the process of tapping and bottling all of our oil.
Every year that we press our olives we seem to receive more kg’s and oil in return – our trees are still reviving from the 10 years of neglect!
The first year we did it, we had just over 500kg (just about had enough for our own press), and we received about 100L of oil. Last year, we managed to get about 800kg of Olives, which turned into roughly 180 L of olive oil – not bad at all!
I wonder what we’ll get next year?
Olive Tree Farm 