Olive Harvest - Crete November 2019

Our first olive harvest of koroneiki trees in North eastern Crete....

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The expert at work - Makis Kourinos! 

and here's the beginner: Stavia picking olives.... 

Olives can be picked by hand or with sophisticated mechanical harvesters, depending on the terrain and the spacing of the olive trees.

Crete's olive trees are often in mountainous and inaccessible terrain which makes anything but traditional hand-picking impossible. Olives are picked individually or are shaken off with softly rotating poles. The olives are caught in nets hung beneath the tree. This method is time-consuming, labour intensive and costly but ensures minimal damage to the olives (a key factor in quality). It also means the fruit is picked at the optimum degree of ripeness.

** LIQUID GOLD'S OLIVE OILS ARE ALL HAND-HARVESTED**

Mechanical harvesters vibrate the branches or skate over the tree-tops. Mechanical harvesting is cheap and fast but can only be used on accessible terrain and larger fruit olive trees with enough space between them. Mechanical harvesting does not differentiate between olives of different ripeness, and it is also more traumatic - so olives are more easily damaged - both of which affects the taste and quality of the oil.