How to Taste Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Let's Strip Like Pros!

Extra Virgin Olive Oil or, how I like to call it, Olive Juice, is first of all a dressing. Its “natural” place is on top of food.

So unless you are an Olive Oil Freak (like me and some others), you might not actually enjoy “drinking” olive oil on its own. And this is perfectly fine.

...However,

tasting Olive Oil on its own is actually the best way to fully detect and appreciate all its attributes (both positive and negative).

In fact almost no food has a neutral taste... Thank God! (imagine how boring our meals would be otherwise!!). Therefore tasting olive oil on its own is fundamental.

So lets see how it works.

1. First and foremost: Sniffing

Pour a small quantity of your olive oil in a beaker. Ideally a small coloured-glass like the one in the photo below would be perfect:

 

but for now any small beaker or glass would do.

 

Close your eyes. Why close your eyes? First, I find that sniffing (and tasting in general) with eyes shut prevents me from being, influenced in my perception. When it comes to taste and smell, external perceptions can be very misleading; secondly because it forces my mind to sharpen the other senses.

Ideally the tasting process should happen in a silent environment too. This is why the official Panel Tests foresee that tasters sit in cubicles without speaking or seeing each other, and the oil is served in coloured glass beakers which don't allow the sight of the colour of the oil inside.

Tip your nose into the beaker and take a nice deep sniff.

Since most of the attributes are perceived through our nose, sniffing is for me the most important part. As a matter of fact, for the purpose of detecting the positive attributes, most of them are perceivable through the olfactory sense. Only Bitterness (Yes Bitterness is a great positive atttibute) is sensored through taste.

2. Tasting and Stripping.

If sniffing is for me the most important part, Tasting is the fun part of the job! So lets see the Tasting Technique.

Take a sip of your olive oil.

Take a couple of seconds to let the oil actually reach every corner of your tongue, then take another couple of seconds to let the oil settle at the base of your mouth (more or less under your tongue, or in any other place where you feel comfortable knowing that you won't swallow it or inhale it abruptly after the next step).

Close your teeth and open your lips (as if your were forced to smile). Then, suck in one or two quick and short quantities of air. (Ok, a quantity of air cannot be short, but I hope I conveyed the idea of what I ment!). This process of “air-sucking” is called Stripping.

At this point it is up to you to swallow or spit.

In this whole procedure, remember one thing: Practice makes perfect … and is fun and also healthy, since extra virgin olive oil is a “super food”.So just start and practice your stripping! :-).

... Small extra tip: If you are a beginner, you might want to take your time (a couple of extra seconds) before your first “air suck”. Take those couple extra seconds to concentrate so that at the “air-suck” you don't shoot the oil directly into your throat, making you choke and cough ect.

3. Why is stripping so important?

As opposed to wine, the oil molecules are not volatile. Through “stripping” we give them a “push”: by rapidly sucking in air we help them vaporize, thus enhancing the restro-olfactory sensations. This helps us to perceive even more deeply the scents and details of olive oil.

Stripping and sniffing shouldn't be repeated more than two or three times in a row, however this is up to each one of you.

4. To swallow or not to swallow?

By the time you have sniffed, tasted, stripped, you have had the chance to get a good feeling about your oil. You will have had the chance to detect the attributes in order to appreciate it and describe it. However in the back of the palate and in our throat, sit some mouth buds TOO.

So swallowing or spitting is entirely up to you.

I personally tend to swallow the extravirgin olive oils I try because a) I'm an olivefreek and b) because its in the throat that I grasp the last facets.


The only times I actually spit an olive oil is in the presence of clearly and strongly defected oils, or when I have to taste several olive oils in a row, like at the panle test in high production season.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and mosto of all,
I hope you have fun experimenting your Tasting Techniques!