Portuguese olive oil

Olive pressing

Olive oil is obtained by means of extracting the oil from the fruits of the olive plant and it offers a variety of benefits to the consumers because of the presence of high proportions of polyphenols and also monounsaturated fats like oleic acid which makes it one of the most popular and oft used of the vegetable oils.

Olive oil production in any part of the world including Portugal is very exhaustive and time consuming process requiring extensive labor. One of the significant processes involved in the cultivation of olive oil is olive pressing which is very significant once the olive is harvested. Under hot weather conditions, olives are often pressed within twenty four hours after harvesting. But, if the weather is cool, then pressing will be done within seventy two hours from the time of harvesting. It is very significant to remember that in order to obtain supreme quality olive oil, it is necessary to ensure that the time difference between the period of harvesting and that of pressing be minimum as otherwise, the acid levels would increase producing inferior products.

The ‘first cold pressing’ process is the means by which supreme quality olive oil can be produced having a nice flavor. In fact statistics show that almost 90% of the world’s olive oil is extracted from the olives during this process of cold pressing. To aid this process of ‘first cold pressing’ mechanical equipments are used nowadays while in the earlier times granite millstones were used. An important requisite to acquire good quality olive oil during press is to ensure that the temperature of the oil does not exceed 86 degree Fahrenheit as beyond that level the oil will be regarded as damaged and of inferior quality. Olive pressing along with harvesting constitutes the two major processes of olive cultivation in Portugal.