From Greek farms to your table: About the Honest Toil olive oil

Honest Toil is a cold-pressed, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil. Let’s see what that means in detail…

Honest Toil: sourced from local farms around Kyparissia

• Our oil is produced exclusively from Greek koroneiki olives from the surrounding olive groves.
• The koroneiki is a tiny variety native to Greece. The trees are small to medium-sized with dark green leaves and produce small, elongated fruit with high oil content.
• Olives we harvest are pressed within a few kilometres of the lands in the small-scale, family-owned village presses of Armeni, Vrises, and Ampelofito.

Authentic, unfiltered, unblended

• Our oil is cold-pressed; the temperature of the whole pressing process is never above 27 °C. We could get significantly more oil if we pressed at higher temperatures, but that would also mean meddling with the precious nutrients in the olive - and we’d rather keep it pure! 
• We don’t filter the oil: once olives are pressed, we don’t put the oil through any additional processes. Our oil contains the sediment from olive skins and pips, giving it a great opaqueness and thick texture. We recommend giving it a good shake before use.
• We don’t blend the oil. It comes entirely from a single source: unlike most commercial oil brands found on supermarket shelves, Honest Toil isn’t mixed with inferior oils, oils from other areas or oils from previous harvests.

A rich, phenolic oil with a tangible 'bite'

• Through the gentle crushing and malaxing process as we work the olives, natural polyphenols first unlock and then stabilise in the oil.
• Polyphenols are the healthy stuff olive oil is most famous for. Phenolic compounds contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress, and they have been linked to lowering the risk of cancer and heart disease.
• One more note on phenolic compounds - they are responsible for imparting that distinct, slightly bitter flavour to virgin olive oils. So when that peppery effect hits on the back of your throat, or you feel that bitterness on the tongue that grabs you when tasting our oil - that’s the ‘bite’ of rich, phenolic oil.

Less acidity means a better quality

• Acidity in olive oil refers to the presence (or, more likely, the lack thereof!) of free fatty acids. Olive oils start with a free fatty acid percentage of zero. Free fatty acids are then sometimes produced afterwards when the olive oil degrades or oxidizes or if the olive oil is made with damaged or rotten fruit.
• Extra virgin olive oil has a free fatty acid percentage of less than 0.8 per cent. Virgin olive oil is characterized by acidity between 0.8% and 2%.
• Our oil has an acidity of around 0.2-0.3% (depending on the particular harvest), which is impressively low and makes Honest Toil super-duper-extra virgin.

Shelf life: from harvest to harvest and beyond

• Honest Toil's shelf life is a minimum of 1.5 years from the harvest date.
• Unlike filtered and processed olive oils, Honest Toil is a living substance with a lifespan. This means that around harvest time, the oil is thick and green with a peppery kick, then as the oil matures, its colour turns golden and its flavour softens. This is a perfectly natural process that we respect and celebrate. Get to know the characteristics of the fresh and the mature oil!
• We always bring the fresh harvest to Budapest, Berlin, and the UK: this means a lot of hard work for us in November-December, but it’s totally worth it!