How can you tell which is which?  I know there are 13 different species of olive but what authority do you use to decide which is which?   Have just delivered 400 kgs of little black soft thingies which I suppose are better than the thousands of bright green hard thingies but, of couse, are far more plentiful.   Shall wait for the green 'uns to turn red/black before harvesting them.  

You ask the oldest Spanish guy around with the cleanest land and he will mutter something totally unintelligable and you will still be none the wiser. ::)
There are actually 11 varieties; early, medium, late, big, medium, small, green, black, cheap, very cheap, very very cheap.

I know very little about olives/oil, but the little bit I do know:
One way of starting to identify the different trees is one type has a straight trunk, the other has a twisted trunk - the ones with twisted trunks started to go black earlier than the straight trunk type - at least this year.

Talking to the man in the mill, the oil is of lower acidity and higher quality if you have green olives than if they are black - black ones have more water in them, so if you're after your own oil take them when they're green.

I often wondered what the ratio was in terms of Kg of olives to litres of oil - it varies greatly and even the mill people don't know until it's done - for example, we took in 140Kg of olives and the chap at the mill said we should expect 20 - 25 litres of oil from them - we actually got 46 which was a suprise to both him and us - and the acidity was 0.4% which is extremely good!

As to identifying trees, good luck!  There are big olives, small olives and medium sized ones :)

Nigel

We've got olives with nipples on them........I don't what they are called but I'm sure someone will tell me.

they are the 'on the buses' olives :)

Ian, if the nipples are facing upwards they are ripe and ready for picking and if they are facing down ........well......maybe don't bother.... the're past it.
                                                    Nelson.

Eric,that's as maybe... but does one press them or squeeze them ??

I'm afraid that I am not properly equipped to answer that testing technical question.........but I'm sure that there will be someone on the forum who can.

suck it and see.   whay else?

wrote on Nov 14^th, 2008 at 9:38pm:

I know very little about olives/oil, but the little bit I do know: One way of starting to identify the different trees is one type has a straight trunk, the other has a twisted trunk - the ones with twisted trunks started to go black earlier than the straight trunk type - at least this year. Talking to the man in the mill, the oil is of lower acidity and higher quality if you have green olives than if they are black - black ones have more water in them, so if you're after your own oil take them when they're green. I often wondered what the ratio was in terms of Kg of olives to litres of oil - it varies greatly and even the mill people don't know until it's done - for example, we took in 140Kg of olives and the chap at the mill said we should expect 20 - 25 litres of oil from them - we actually got 46 which was a suprise to both him and us - and the acidity was 0.4% which is extremely good! As to identifying trees, good luck!  There are big olives, small olives and medium sized ones :) Nigel

Hi Nigel, May I ask which Oil mill you took your olives into. I have only ever sold all my olives. So what is the process for the oil?Do you have to provide the bottles? What does the oil mill charge you for producing the oil or do they take half the oil?Please, this is a genuine enquiry and not a wind up.

Ok, personal experience....
We were planning to go to Moli D'Oli in Campredo.  I asked what they charge and they said there is no minimum or maximum weight and the price is 50 euros.
We had, we thought, around 110Kg and when we got there there was a queue (we hadn't booked a time) and we had other things to do.

Some friends use the mill at Camarles so, as we were passing, we stopped by and they weren't busy.  They muttered a bit about our low weight, claiming it is a 300Kg minimum, but said they would press them for us.  We had to give an NIE number and address and, in typical Spanish beurocratic style, went from one place to the other at least 2 or 3 times.

We ended up paying just under 19 euros - Camarles charge by weight.

You need to supply your own bottles and get all of your own oil.  Take more bottles than you expect to fill as you might fet a surprise!  We got around 33cl per Kg of olives.

Good luck,

Nigel

When the nipples point downwards, we call 'em spaniels ears in our neck of the woods.  :o
Sorry.

From my neighbour, I understand that the twisted trunk ones that went black first this year are called Sevillenc , and the later green ones which are turning just now are called Marrut. We also have another variety called Farga, which are long, and slim.

And the little tiny ones are called Arbequina - beyond that I know little else.

HTH