cat slash human

I think this year’s olive oil is our best yet.

I am in love with our label art, which comes to you from the textas of a talented seven-year old. It’s a good reflection of our cowboy attitude to this year’s pressing.

Why cowboy? Well, this oil was left to settle for 8 weeks, rather than the recommended 4-6 weeks. Whoa! Crazy, right? Yep, we’re pushing boundaries. The result is a robust oil that is also smooth and delicious.

This year’s facts and figures:

• Olives picked = 156kg
• Picking time = ~28.5 hours over 7 days [just one week of picking time this year]
• Oil produced = 28L [pressed at Jumanga]
• Varietals = picual, kalamata, manzanillo, verdale [translates to another year of undiscerningly picking olives that would have gone to waste. I think this is one of the factors that gives the oil complexity, and taking advantage of the food growing all around us is a reason that inspires me to keep doing this]

This is Year 3 of producing our own olive oil, and each year our list of willing helpers grows. My thanks go out to this hefty cast of generous contributors:

• Suzie & Paul, John & Jean, Leandri, Darren & Alicia, Anna & Andrew, Amanda, Kristy & Laurie [for your olives];
• Anna, Baiba (and Seb), John, Sarah, Justin [for donating olive-picking time];
• John & Jean [for their gift of proper olive oil bottles and seals];
• Trine [for turning my dinky design into professional labels]; and
• India [for the label image and choosing our oil’s name].

With my next olive pressings booked in, I’m already looking forward to Year 4’s oil.