OLIVE OIL HISTORY

Olive oil, or according to Homer "liquid gold", was in antiquity not merely a food but a symbol of health and strength, a medicine, and a source of magic and wonder. Specifically, in ancient Greece, athletes would rub it all over their body, in the belief that it would give them strength and luck, and warriors would anoint the heads of nobles with it and drip drops on the bones of dead saints and martyrs, it being the emblem of sanctification and chastity.

The cultivation of the olive tree is lost in the mists of time.

Olive tree fossils have been found in Livorno, Italy, dating back 20 million years, while the cultivation of the olive tree is estimated to have begun in the wider Mediterranean Sea region, approximately 7,000 years ago. In Greece, according to archaeological findings, its cultivation began in Crete 3,500 years ago.

The factors affecting the quality of olive oil:

• The variety of olive tree
• The location and type of soil where it is cultivated
• The environmental and weather conditions under which it is cultivated.
• The maturity of the olive tree
• The season and manner of olive harvesting
• The period between olive harvesting and olive oil production
• The manner in which the olive oil is produced
• The manner in which the olives are transported to the olive mills,  the storage techniques and the mode of packing.