An Introduction to Olive Oil Tasting

Olive oil has been promi­nent in the news recently. Climatic chal­lenges dur­ing the 2022 and 2023 har­vests led to lower yields and higher prices. So, along­side the con­tin­u­ing good news of research show­ing promis­ing health ben­e­fits for both peo­ple and the planet, there have also been sen­sa­tional alle­ga­tions of sketchy behav­ior in the mar­ket­place.

Despite a chal­leng­ing period of poor crops, the reg­u­la­tory agen­cies in export­ing coun­tries like Spain and Italy are on the job, even mak­ing arrests for fraud­u­lent activ­i­ties. As for alle­ga­tions of wide­spread adul­ter­ation in U.S. super­mar­kets, there is no evi­dence to back that up; the stud­ies that have ran­domly tested for adul­ter­ation — reli­ably detected in the chem­istry lab — found no con­firmed cases.

If you still feel like a pall of sus­pi­cion has been cast over that pretty bot­tle of olive oil in your cup­board — or those on the super­mar­ket shelf — what’s a con­sumer to do? The most impor­tant thing is to assess the oil’s qual­ity your­self by learn­ing the basics of olive oil tast­ing. By know­ing a lit­tle, con­sumers can ben­e­fit a lot.

The log­i­cal place for an olive oil edu­ca­tion to start is with tast­ing. All the read­ing in the world doesn’t mean any­thing unless you can con­nect it to the sen­sory expe­ri­ence — the aroma and taste of olive oil.

Professional olive oil tasters sip the oil straight from lit­tle blue glasses that look like votive can­dle hold­ers from your favorite café. Although ulti­mately, we must remem­ber that olive oil is an ingre­di­ent in food, tast­ing it straight does have the advan­tage of giv­ing you an utterly undis­guised taste of the oil.

Don’t be scared. A lit­tle sip of olive oil won’t hurt you — it’s actu­ally very nice once you get used to the idea — and it will help you learn to rec­og­nize char­ac­ter­is­tics with­out the com­pli­ca­tion of other fla­vors.

The aro­mas of olive oil are a crit­i­cal part of its fla­vor. The best way to appre­ci­ate them is to pour some olive oil (a table­spoon or two) into a small wine­glass (or an offi­cial olive oil-tast­ing glass if you have one).

Cup the glass in one hand and cover it with the other to trap the aro­mas inside while you warm it up. Hold it, swirl it, warm it for a minute or two. Then, stick your nose into the glass and take a good whiff of the aroma or ​“nose” of the olive oil.

You may notice the smell of fresh-cut grass, cin­na­mon, trop­i­cal fruits, or other ripe or green olive fruit aro­mas. This is a good time to point out that ​“fruity” in olive oil refers to veg­etable notes, i.e., green and ripe fruit notes. So think of arti­chokes, grass and herbs as ​“fruit” when you taste olive oils!

Now, take a sip of the oil. Don’t be too wimpy about it; if you don’t get a decent amount, you won’t appre­ci­ate all the qual­i­ties of the oil because it only gets on the tip of your tongue. You ide­ally want to get the impres­sions of the entire mouth and tongue.

Suck air through the oil to coax more aro­mas out of it, and then — this is impor­tant — close your mouth and breathe out through your nose. This ​“retronasal” per­cep­tion will give you many other fla­vor notes. Retronasal per­cep­tion is pos­si­ble because your mouth con­nects to your nose in the back. Now, swal­low some or all of the oil.

Pungency is a pep­pery sen­sa­tion detected in the throat, so swal­low­ing some oil is impor­tant. Pungency is a pos­i­tive char­ac­ter­is­tic of olive oil. It is a chem­i­cal irri­ta­tion, like the hot­ness of chilies, and equally appeal­ing once you get used to it.

Once you start to get into that spicy kick, it is hard to imag­ine life with­out it. Pungency can be very mild — just the tini­est tin­gle — or intense enough to make you cough. Olive oil afi­ciona­dos will some­times refer to a one, two, or look out, a three-cough oil.

The third of the three pos­i­tive attrib­utes of olive oil, in addi­tion to fruity and pun­gent, is bit­ter. Bitterness, like pun­gency, is also an acquired taste. As any­one who has ever tasted an olive right off the tree can attest, bit­ter is a promi­nent taste in fresh olives.

Curing olives for the table has to start with a deb­it­ter­ing process. Since olive oil is made from uncured olives, vary­ing degrees of bit­ter­ness can be found; oil made from riper fruit will have lit­tle to no bit­ter­ness, oil made from greener fruit can be dis­tinctly bit­ter.

American taste hori­zons are broad­en­ing; we are explor­ing bit­ter­ness with foods like dark choco­late, bit­ter salad greens and now, robust olive oils.

You may notice fruity char­ac­ter­is­tics in the mouth, includ­ing nutty, but­tery, other ripe fla­vors, and a fuller spec­trum of green, fruity notes. Another char­ac­ter­is­tic most pro­nounced in this retronasal per­cep­tion is ran­cid­ity. We will explore that in another arti­cle when we look at the com­mon defects of olive oil. The tra­di­tional palate cleanser between olive oils is water, plain or sparkling, and Granny Smith apple slices.

Once you have tasted an olive oil plain, the next step is to taste it with food. This is where olive oil comes to life as one of the fla­vors in a dish.

Wine presents a good anal­ogy: a great wine with food might not be appro­pri­ate as an aper­i­tif. Olive oil is the same: some­times, an olive oil that seems over-the-top pun­gent and bit­ter by itself or with bread is per­fec­tion when used to top a hearty bean soup.

Pairing olive oils and foods is an entire dis­cus­sion, but for a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence, try three dif­fer­ent olive oils — one del­i­cate, one medium, and one robust — with var­i­ous items. Good choices are warm boiled pota­toes, fresh moz­zarella, ripe toma­toes, bread, warm cooked white beans, salad greens, sea­sonal cooked veg­eta­bles, grilled steak, poached or grilled chicken, and what­ever is for din­ner. Cook things sim­ply, with­out adding sea­son­ings, but be sure you have some sea salt on hand.

Now, taste pieces of the same food dipped in each of the oils. Notice how the fla­vors inter­act. Is it a har­mo­nious mix? A con­trast? Does one fla­vor over­whelm the other, or do they bal­ance well? 

This is fun to do with a group of friends: you can taste together and com­pare impres­sions. Add red and white wines to com­plete the pair­ings, and you have a din­ner party.