Olive Oil Tasting

Many of you have probably attended wine tastings (though I never have.) Last night, however, I went to an olive oil tasting. Some people tell me this is becoming popular in the U.S.

I went to a very small restaurant/bar in Genmayze, where 14 of us were seated at a long table. A woman from a local NGO explained to us how most Lebanese olive oil is garbage. Though of course the Lebanese and people from the villages are very proud of their traditional agricultural products.

Extra virgin is cold pressed and has no more than .8% acidity. But even if oil passes the laboratory tests for acidity and peroxide levels, it still can't be considered "extra virgin" until a professional taster deems it as such. If olive oil is labeled "pure", "refined", or "light", run the other way--full speed! Its taste and acidity has been chemically controlled.

In 2004, 3% of olive oil production in Lebanon was classified as extra virgin. Today, through the work of NGOs educating small farmers (defined as having less than 5 dollum, 5,000 square feet), who are 50% of the growers, the production is now at 10%.

It's a very sensitive process that entails not hitting the trees with sticks (which also stymies their production the following season), to not putting them in bags but leaving them in crates, to taking them to the press in less than 48 hours, and using a modern mill, instead of the traditional stone ones (which are 87% in Lebanon) because that exposes the paste to air which starts fermentation.

The ideal time to harvest is in October when the color changes from green to black. But Lebanese farmers usually wait until later in the season when the olives are fatter.

I was riveted by all this information.

Then came the practicum.

In front of me were 5 plastic cups with some olive oil. Foil covered the tops, and they were labeled A through E. With full concentration, we were to hold the cup in front of us, and then put it in the palm of our other hand, turning it in a small circle, to mix it up and heat it up. Then we were to smell and put the foil back on.

Then, we were supposed to line them up from best to worst. The best is if you took an olive from the tree and squeezed it. The worst is you're at a stone mill, with a car running outside, the exhaust mixing with people smoking cigarettes, and people stepping on the stuff, and using dirty crates and machines--chemical contamination.

D and E were about the same and the best. They had that robust, distinctive olive oil scent that I've come to appreciate since I've come to Lebanon. A was insipid and bland. B and C were both putrid and chemically.

Then we tasted. I slirped it back, hearing the air slide through my teeth and cross my tongue. In between, I ate apples and drank water to clear my palette.

After that, I deemed E to be the best and C to be the worst.

Check it out!!!

A is the best and most pure.

D and E are contaminated!!!! B and C are the best but a year old, so they got rancid. Olive oil isn't good the following year. It lasts 18 months at the most.

So I thought D and E were the best because that's what I've gotten used to from living here for so long. I'm always eating the real-deal stuff that people buy from their neighbors in the village. And really, it's all contaminated! That robust, distinct flavor is exhaust and cigarettes and other pollutants.

Wow! It's like my whole world has been turned upside-down. . .