In this update we want to give you an overview of where the olive oil is actually coming from.
The person behind the oil is Elisabeth Tsapekis - an independent farmer and producer who operates a small-scale olive grove in the southern Greece province of Messenia. Her grove consists of just over three hundred Koroneiki olive trees ranging from 30 to over 200 years old. Each year she produces exclusively organic, cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil, and uses her online shop, Elitsas Olive Oil (https://elitsas.com), as her main channel for distribution.
The Olives and the Olive Oil
Like fine wine, the oil from each year’s harvest and every producer is unique. But why? Shouldn’t olive oil be equally good in color, taste, smell and health benefits when the same kind of olive is used?
There are certain controllable variables that make olive oil unique and ‘good’. On top of that, there are factors you can’t control, like weather or regional water shortages.
So what are these controllable variables…
First of all, olives need care and attention! Lack of care is one of the major factors for bad olive oil. For organic certified olives, which make great organic extra virgin olive oil, no chemicals are used - only natural repellents against flies and other insects, so the olives are not harmed and the taste is not impacted. Elitsas olive grove only utilizes these natural repellents, and the grove rents the land around it to ensure there is a safe distance from other olive oil producers who may be using chemicals. This ensures that rain or wind can’t carry harmful chemicals over to the olive grove.
Timing the harvest, which can occur anytime in Autumn is a crucial balancing act. An earlier harvest means better oil, though the tradeoff is less yield. Green olives produce more intensive taste, more polyphenol acid, less radicals, are longer lasting, yet also have much lower oil yield. Many olive oil farmers wait until the olives are ripe, transforming from green to purple, to get more oil per kilogram of olives, yet unfortunately resulting in lower quality oil.
The harvest should be as gentle as possible. Heavy machinery may damage olives, which will impact the quality of the oil. This type of machinery may also harm or kill animals that have made the orchard or surrounding area their home, which can negatively impact the overall ecosystem. Elitsas olives are harvested with special hand tools and bagged in lower capacities to minimize damage.
The healthy content of an olive will begin degrading as soon as it is plucked from its tree branch, hence time to olive oil pressing should be as short as possible. The longer the duration between harvest and pressing, the worse the quality. To optimize the output, it is better to harvest and press in small batches over several days, to maintain minimal duration between harvest and pressing.
To preserve the health benefits and overall quality of the oil, the pressing and oil extraction should be conducted in under 27°C via a completely air-sealed process. This process may include two to three rounds of pressing to maximize oil output. It is again a balancing act that needs great care and attention, as the machines conducting the heavy lifting can become too hot through the mechanical process if left unsupervised.
To protect against UV degradation, olive oil should be stored in either stainless steel or dark glass containers. High quality oil in a proper container can maintain a shelf life for about two years.
Health Benefits
Polyphenol, a family of naturally occurring organic compounds, is the main factor used to represent the health benefits of olive oil. Polyphenols are proven to have positive effects on the digestive system, which helps to decrease high blood lipid levels, reduce cholesterol and normalize insulin levels.
Scientifically, a single olive weighs around 2–5 grams and contains 50% water, 20–22% oil, and additional elements like sugars, proteins, vitamins, phenols, and others. The oil is 97–99% fat, which breaks down into 65–85% oil acid, 6–15% linolacid and 6–15% palmitic acid. The remaining oil contents are the non-fat ingredients, which are responsible for the taste, smell and color. These include polyphenols, vitamins, and olive oil aroma molecules.
The polyphenol content evidently reduces blood lipid levels so much that the EU, which maintains strict nutritional guidelines, allows for a special labeling that advertises the health benefits of oils containing high polyphenol content. To have such a label, 1kg of olive oil must contain at least 250mg of polyphenol content. The olive oil from Elitsas’ grove has tested for 740mg/kg, almost triple the minimum threshold of polyphenol content. This polyphenol measurement occurs shortly after the harvest and will decrease over time, hence our project will ship the bottles of fresh oil olive as they are available.
The Harvest and Bottling
For a harvest aimed to produce oil for normal retail, a large volume makes it necessary to use heavy machinery to collect the olives. This can potentially harm the olives and cause negative effects as described above.
For Aisthisi, we are harvesting a small batch, and will use 100% manual harvesting methods. No machinery will be used to collect the olives, as this will be a completely traditional hand harvest to maintain not only the quality, but also the culture of the Greek olive oil.
Once harvested for a normal retail endeavor, the olive oil is usually filtered multiple times to remove any leftover olive content and produce the clear yellow-green color we are all accustomed to. In ancient times, olive oil was actually not filtered, and it had a richer solid green color and also a spicy tinge, which is a sign of fresh olive oil. This type of oil is called Omphakinon (Ομφακινον), a term said to be coined by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460–370 BC). This type of oil cannot be found in your normal retail shop, and is usually hard to come by unless you know an olive farmer. It is this Omphakinon oil that we will be producing and shipping for Aisthisi.
Again for normal retail, once the olive oil is pressed and filtered, a sample is sent to a laboratory for polyphenol and overall analysis. The oil is then usually sent to bottling and distribution centers in large containers in cargo ships and trucks. The oil may ship to different countries depending on the target market, and this process can take several weeks to months. After this time, which can cause degradation of the oil’s freshness and health benefits, it can go through additional layers of distribution before finally becoming available for retail customers.
We are skipping this long bottling and distribution process, and instead will bottle the oil directly in Messenia, Greece on the same day as pressing. This will allow us to send the most fresh, tasty, and healthy traditional olive oil as an insured parcel to the respective NFT holder.
In addition, the harvest, pressing, and bottling process will be filmed and included in the NFT metadata as a proof-of-harvest and to share the experience of a 2000+ year old tradition to create Greek Omphakinon olive oil.
In future articles we will share more of how NFT and blockchain technology will play a role in bringing all of this together, as well as connect with the collaborating artists, so stay tuned!
Website: https://aisthisi.art/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aisthisi_nft
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/HNhDTMTAN7
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/aisthisi
