Natural, healthy, and balanced are just three adjectives used to define the many properties that characterize extra virgin olive oil.
Used since ancient times, today, extra virgin olive oil is one of the most coveted and appreciated foods in the world, but it is also one of the most discussed. Confusion may arise when consumers seek organoleptic characteristics, pressing methodology, and the spectrum of falsification.
Let’s look into some technical details that may help to clear some of the doubts.
For an extra virgin olive oil to present and offer the organoleptic characteristics praised by everyone, the olive must be cold-pressed within 48 hours after harvesting. This detail is by no means superficial because only with the cold process can quality standards, nutritional properties, and the typical taste of extra virgin olive oil be guaranteed. Particularly the polyphenols, perhaps its most critical organoleptic components, can be kept unaltered. Cold-pressed oil preserves not only all the organoleptic properties but also the taste and the right acidity that qualify it as food excellence.
However, cold pressing should not be confused with traditional pressing practices performed with stone millstones or similar. This oil extraction process follows all the directives of modern olive oil practice, with state-of-the-art machinery capable of extracting the oil directly from the olive paste. The peculiarity that makes the difference all lies in the maximum temperatures reached during the extraction process itself. More conventional hot pressing allows obtaining a higher quantity of oil.
Widely demonstrated in laboratories that exceeding a specific temperature can alter the organoleptic properties and the taste and degree of extra virgin’s pungent acidity in the product. Therefore, cold pressing can never exceed the threshold of 27 degrees Celsius (80.6 F) during the entire extraction process, even if this involves less oil production obtained from hot pressing.
We often read the words “extra virgin olive oil extracted at low temperature.” What it means is that the process reaches slightly higher temperatures, between 27 and 30 degrees centigrade, about 80 to 86 Fahrenheit.
This slight difference does not alter the values and properties of the oil significantly. But it refers to the ancient oil tradition, which implemented the initial threshold within to operate at 86 degrees Fahrenheit as the limit. However, it cannot be defined as a cold pressing, but a method that allows you to obtain a slightly more significant oil from the same amount of olives.
