While visiting Seville, I got to visit a plantation of olive oil trees and learn the history of how this family was able to build such a legacy. During the tour, I got an inside look into the process of preparing the olive trees for the season, how they squeeze the oil from the olives, and how they pick the olives off of the tree once the olives are ripe enough. The gentleman who owns the plantation, showed us how to detect fresh, healthy olive oil from olive oil that is spoiled. Healthy, virgin oil should smell like either fresh cut grass, tomatoes, almonds, banana peels, or apple peels. Oil that has had chemicals added would smell, vinegary, musty, humid, burnt, or rancid. I found the role of the government in this process interesting. The government visits periodically and examines whether the oil is extra virgin, virgin, or needs to be sent away. This process starts by pouring each type of oil into a blue glass jar and then tasting it one by one. They make observations such as the smell or taste of the oil to decide how virgin the oil is. If the oil smelled, vinegary, musty, humid, burnt, or rancid then it would be taken to a factory where it would be mixed with chemicals to make it better. I learned the importance of how to store olive oil, it should be stored in a dark container that contains the oxygen inside of the bottle. This is to keep the freshness of the olive oil preserved and to allow all the benefits and pleasures of the oil to be preserved as well. After learning this, I was privileged to try olive oil by itself for the first time. I also got to experience how they test out the quality of the oil for myself and why the jar being tinted blue was an important attribute to oil testing. The jar being blue is to preserve seeing the color of the oil because by seeing the color, you would be able to have an idea of how virgin the oil you were testing was. The testers from the government take a sip of the oil and suck their teeth while swishing the oil in their mouth. The sucking of the teeth is so that you can taste the oil without your saliva being mixed in, therefore giving you the full and best effect of what you’re tasting. While visiting the Spanish olive oil farm, I tried a new dessert that is now one of my favorites. At first, I was hesitant to taste it but it ended up being one of my favorite desserts that I tried while exploring Spain. The dessert is a mixture of citrus infused oil mixed with creamy chocolate ice cream. Sounds nasty I know but it truly left me wanting more, it’s the perfect mix of chocolate and citrus, it’s creamy and chocolate rich and let’s be honest who doesn’t love that combination.
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