Day 14 - The Olive Oil Journey

Happy Saturday. Some changes to the blog:

1. The Day itself & an Olive Oil Takeaway will be the primary element of the blog (intros will come and go)

2. Pictures will now be on Instagram (click below to follow)

I really appreciate the support thus far and I will continue this blog throughout my time in Europe finding the best Olive Oils.

Day 14

Valencia, Spain | November 7th, 2022

I chilled with some hostel-goers until late night and after, get 5 hours of sleep, and for breakfast I have 2 Croissants with some of the new Oil from Jaen for breakfast. And corn flakes / milk. Fire.

Class 1/5 of ESAO Olive Oil School 

I get to the sommelier course 30 minutes early - I don’t think I've ever been more than 5 minutes early to a class in my life unless it was convenient.

We're about a 14 person class, and I can say everyone is taking the class for a different reason. Wine Sommelier from Serbia,  3 ladies from Switzerland looking to enter the importing market (Taiwan Originally), guy from Minnesota (Family Olive Grove in Greece) and professor from New Jersey (Family Olive Grove in Turkey) that want to elevate their side hobby of helping out their family Olive Grove, 2 new olive growers from California, Olive Farm worker form the first commercial Olive farm in Arizona, Italian Restaurant owner in Korea, and more.

And me, youngest in the class by about 15 years. Unsurprising as many people discuss retirement more than their current work. For pretty much everyone in there Olives are a side project. Full disclosure it's my full time job. And people usually ask me that question 2-3 times before realizing I actually treat it as such.

There were many concepts discussed that I heard before, but it was nice to see other people learning these concepts as one day it would be cool to be able to have some sort of educational element of Olive Oil to be provided to people.

We had 13 vases of oil in blue glasses in front of us, 12 of which were defective and 1 was last year’s oil  - rather OK in my [snobby] eyes but good in most people’s eyes.

It will continue to be difficult to tell the difference between the fusty and winey and rancid defect, but what matters is identifying the defect exists, and that I could do lol.

After leaving the tasting session I am pretty scarred from all of the defective oil ngl (not gonna lie). Having to practice tasting the moldy oils almost made me want to avoid oil.

Best part about it, we get to lunch, and THE OIL IS DEFECTIVE. Like actually, people in the class [not just Oil snob me] were saying the same thing. I was in shock – though I’ve had rancid oil in the US many times. I guess I should lower my expectations for Valencia Dining Hall Olive Oil.

2 hours later we get on the bus to visit an Olive Oil Cooperative, I write a bit and nap till we arrive an hour later.

Long story short: Olives were all black (ripe, mid-low quality), Co-op was for more of a commodity extra virgin and the new oil was tough to swallow (rancid). Not great oil.

We finally get out of there and drive home.

I ended the day with an incredible 2.5 hour dinner with some classmates (Greek guy and the two Californian Farmers). We ate outside in 58 degrees - I was wearing a T-Shirt and Shorts…brutal. I get home, do some end of day work, and pass out...

1 Olive Oil Takeaway:

If an Olive Mill smells rancid, it probably produces rancid oil. Look for clean mills. My reaction below upon arrival realizing I won't be consuming great oil:

-Jack

Thank you for reading and welcome to the blog! I'm traveling through Europe on a quest to find great Olive Oil.