Spain Trip #37: Granada: Olive Oil Tour Part 2: Old vs. New Processes

Rob, Tom and David at an olive stone stall

This is part 2 of the blog about our tour of the olive grove in Niguelas, a small town south of Granada, Spain. During our tour, we learned about the labor intensive old process and the new process of harvesting olives and making olive oil. You'll learn about both in this blog.

OLD PROCESS - This was a labor intensive and tedious process! Here's how it worked:
1) People hit branches with sticks to get the olives to fall off the trees
2) Workers would gather the fallen olives in a basket and carry them by donkey to the mill
3) Olives are dumped into stone stalls. They were later brought into the mill.
4) The olives were crushed by millstones (explained in yesterday's blog)
5) Water was added to make a paste, then it was poured over filters where warm water was added.
6) The paste was then pressed by the "big arm" we learned about yesterday, and olive oil drained out of the mats and into vats under them.

David, Dan and others on the olive grove tour

The Olive stalls outside the mill 

NEW PROCESS - This is much less labor intensive and less time consuming!
1) Machines shake olive tree branches over large containers, and olives fall into them.
2) The containers are pulled by tractor to the mill.

The big arm Olive Oil Press in the mill 

3) Olive tree leaves are separated and used as food for animals
4) Olives are then poured into a steel drum blender to  make an olive paste, where it is separated into a vegetable paste and water.
5) the paste sits in a vat for 5 days and nitrogen is pumped into the vat to prevent oxidation
6) The oil is then bottled.
7) The olive pits are still sold for fuel usage.

The Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain

NEXT: The Olive Oil Tasting Test!