Sun, Beaches, Mild Climate, Olive Groves
It is the sun, Mediterranean Sea and the mild climate of Andalusia that make the tourists come back as often as they can. Since 21 years, we have live in Southern Spain during the winter months ...we come here in Autumn and come back to home base around Spring of each year. Our house is surrounded by olive groves and they are scattered all over our valley. Some of the very old trees have been planted centuries ago, some reached a thousand years. One of the very good characteristics of olive trees is that they can withstand extreme conditions, weather wise they are very resilient even if the temperature is -8°C.
World´s Nr. 1 Olive Oil
Today, I will be sharing with you about the olive trees here in our area.. as we live inland which is aeround 4 Km to the beach, each plot in the valley have been planted with olive trees. I for one has a tree in our land but I do not really maintain it... it grows by itself, no fertilizers. no watering. Nature takes care of that tree.
Andalusia with its quality olive oil joins many competition...the last had been for 2019 and it won the title The Best Olive Oil in the world. In the list included here, you can see the ranking of the final competition and Andalusia wins the first 1- 8 slots.
World´s Best Organic Olive Oils
It also won the category, World´s Best Organic Olive Oils for the years 2018/2019 Source.
Family Oriented
Most of the local farmers are family oriented which means when they harvest, all of the family members young and old would join-in. They would spread a net all around the tree and start pounding the branches with a stick so that the olives would fall down... or others hand pick them and they would gather whatever falls down on the net and put them in containers for submission to a local cooperative for pressing. It is like having a fiesta or picnic because they would bring along food and gather around the tree to enjoy eating lunch. They would bring along serrano ham finely sliced and some white bread or baguette spread with olive oil.
The Olive Oil
In the mill the olives undergo by several processes, the extraction / pressing process giving rise to the “sacred liquid” – the oil extracted from the olives. Once separated from the vegetation water and free of particles from the skin, the pulp and the stone is called… olive oil.Source
According to Casa de aceite in order to obtain 1 liter of extra virgin olive oil, 5 to 6 kg of olive are needed which is between 5000 - 8000 pieces olives. And though Spain is a big producer of olive oil. the prices here of 1 liter is not cheaper than the ones in Central Europe which ironically comes from Spain or Italy. It is very much the same with the vegetables and fruits, the middlemen get the big cut from the selling prices in the market.
The last two images show the area where we live, mountainous and hilly. You could only hear the barks of the dogs and the foxes at night along the creek called barranco in Spain.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this post.
Thanks for visiting and have a good Wednesday Walk!
