| Regardless of who's selling the product, (extra virgin) olive oil has been consistently shown to have significant health benefits. His product specifically? Let's look at the details:
- "May 2023 harvest date" - Not bad! Most olive oils in your grocery store were harvested 2-3 years ago. This is not the most recent harvest (Oct-Dec 2023) though but you will still get incredibly fresh and healthy oils going back 1-1.5 years from the day you buy. Anything older has significantly lost health benefits. - EVOO = Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The extra virgin label is an indicator of the highest quality i.e. no chemical/heat used, just olive fruit crushed into juice (oil). Many factors are at play here, like time of harvest, delay b/w harvesting and crushing. This is not a regulated label in the US so only chemical and more importantly sensory analysis can guarantee the EVOO designation. - Which leads to "3rd party lab verified": show us the results Bryan! I am a panelist at one of these labs and would love to read the results :) But from my experience in the industry, the mention of this probably points to him actually having done testing and having received the label. - UV resistant: Excellent. Exposure to light and heat severely degrades the taste and health qualities of oil.
- Single source: Usually an indicator of quality since the miller and bottler are one and the same, so lesser chances of contaminants/quality failures. - "Taste is peppery and smooth": Peppery is an indicator of quality - the peperry sensation is known as pungency, which along with fruitiness and bitterness is 1 of 3 indicators of EVOO. But smooth is not! I would argue that smooth indicates a mediocre oil. But sensory characteristics are arbitrary so we don't really know for sure what he means. - Price point: Slightly above average for high quality EVOO. This price point usually indicates some commitment to quality - making high quality EVOO at a cheaper price point is not really possible, especially given the droughts in olive growing regions this past year. Sources: I'm an olive oil somm, panelist on a California sensory analysis panel that tastes and grades olive oils. |