Q & A

This is your chance to ask the questions you always wanted to ask about tea, olive oil, the meaning of life and who killed J.R.

Having said that, we ("we" = 'professional panel') would appreciate if you could please try to limit your questions to tea and olive oil.
We don't promise any answers, at least not good ones, but we will try our best.

Please leave your questions in the "comment" box and we will frequently add them to the main text.

Question:
"Dear Doctors, my husband and I constantly argue about how to chose our olive oils. His method is to rub various olive oils on my back and ask which one feels best.
My method (passed on to me by my late grand mother) is a touch more complex and involves the full lyrics of "'Eni, Meni, Maini, Mo".
We would appreciate your wise comment as to who is right.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs B. from Glorious Kazakhstan

Answer:
To him: We frequently come across people who think that this is the best way to chose their olive oil. And in some respects this is true!
But the question is what you are going to use the olive for? If it is "massage" you are looking for then this is perhaps an excellent way to go about it.

To her: We understand that this is how the Glorious Kazachstan Olive Association ( in Kazakh abbreviated "E. VIRIGIN") recommends choosing edible olive oils but there are other different ways at least as good.

Assuming you want to chose the frutiest most balanced olive oil for food consumption, our panel tends to use the official IOOC (International Olive Oil Council) cup.

This is a hand-blown glass specially designed for olive oil tasting. It is in blue so that one does not judge the olive oil by its colour - as the colour does not matter in quality judgment of olive oil.

You want to learn more - press here!

If you do not own such a glass we recommend you do the following:
1) Purchase one (we can help with it)

2) Pour a small amount of olive oil in a small cup ideally similarly looking in shape. Place it at the palm of your hand and cover it with your other palm to warm it. After a minute or two of calm circular motion, place the cup under your nose and then take a quick powerful sniff to appreciate the bouquet of the oil. This procedure will allow you to detect some of the defects and positive attributes of the olive oil in question.

You then need to taste the olive oil. Allow the oil to run all over your tongue, register the bitterns, saltiness, astringencies and no sweetness!
Then swallow for the pungency effect.

If you would like to find out what olive oil goes well with what food or what are legally considered positive and negative attributes please do not hesitate to ask us.
You might also wonder why olive oil never has any sweetness, yet there are olive oils we call "hmm this is sweet".
Though we will appreciate questions that bother you at your day to day life.