How to understand if an extra virgin olive oil is of quality?
If you are a lover of good extra virgin olive oil, it is important to know how to recognize quality.
Obviously there are also subjective aspects in taste, but generally high quality extra virgin olive oils have higher prices due to higher production costs. Generally then, quality oils have health properties that cheaper oils do not have
In Italy there is certainly no shortage of high quality extra virgin olive oils.
So let's see some simple advice to find out if an extra virgin olive oil is of quality or not:
- Use your sense of smell: pour the oil into a glass, shake it, warm it up a bit with your hands and then smell it. If you perceive aromas of olives, fresh vegetation, fruit, grass and vegetables, the oil is very likely to be good!
- Taste it: a quality EVO oil must have bitter and spicy flavor notes given by the organic compounds it contains, if you notice them it is certainly a good oil. If, on the other hand, you notice a rancid taste, the oil is most likely old or of low quality.
- Use sight: generally sight is not the most reliable means of judging the quality of the oil because it does not allow for the detection of various food frauds (rectified oil, the addition of chlorophyll, the fact that it can be stretched, mixed, colored etc.). However, too much fluency is a sign of poor quality. The same goes for a transparent yellowish color. In fact, the color of a quality EVO oil varies from green to bright yellow gold , depending on the harvest period and the variety of olives.
