Olive

An olive is a fruit. Press it and you have Olive oil. Cure it and you have a table olive. Those are different technologies; the starting material is the fruit.

USDA’s olive-oil grades describe oil obtained from olives: virgin oils, refined oils, and olive-pomace oils as separate classes ¹. Extra virgin is a grade of virgin oil, judged on flavor, odor, and chemistry. It is not a description of the raw fruit on the tree. A green olive and a ripe olive can both become oil; the grade is about the oil you bottled.

Table olives. Curing is a preserving craft that makes a bitter fruit edible. A tested process determines the salt and treatment. Salt is often the mineral. See Preserving for the idea of holding a harvest.

What to notice. Raw olives are bitter. That bitterness is why curing exists. Taste a finished table olive for salt, bitterness left behind, and whether the flesh is firm or collapsed. Taste oil on the Olive oil page.

Tasting is the shared skill. For geography and producer stories, see the relevant place entries.