Today, about 90% of the large worldwide
crop goes to making olive oil.
Making Olive Oil Olive oil is made from the
olive fruits when they are six to eight months
old, mature and approaching their maximum
oil content, and just beginning to turn color
from green to purple; fully ripe fruits develop
less of the valued green aroma. The olives are
cleaned, coarsely crushed, pit and all
(sometimes along with some leaves from the
tree), and finely ground into a paste to break
the fruit cells open and free their oil. The
paste is mixed for 20–40 minutes to give the
oil droplets a chance to separate from the
watery mass of olive flesh and coalesce with
each other (this step is called “malaxation”).
Then the paste is pressed to squeeze both oil
and watery liquid from the solids. More oil,
but of lesser quality, is extracted by pressing
repeatedly and by heating the paste; oil
extracted in the “first cold pressing” is the