I was recently invited to help my friend Clare harvest her olives. Clare has a lovely farmhouse near Knossos with 56 olive trees on her property. I was so excited to be invited and experience this special Greek tradition. Since living on Crete, I have learned how central to Cretan life olives and olive oil are. Crete is the home to over 30 million Olive trees and olive oil is the island’s top agricultural export. Most families have Olive trees that have been passed down from generation to generation; Jeff has over 140 olive trees himself, left to him by his mom. His family trees are taken care of by a man that takes a percentage of the harvest as his pay and gives the rest to the family. I have heard his trees aren’t ready yet, but we will hopefully visit soon.

The day started early in the morning, and when I arrived around 9, they were just getting started. It was a bit of havoc at first, but I quickly jumped right in and grabbed one of the electric rakes that spin, shaking the olives free from the tree. I was taught to run the rake along the branches, above and below several times to get all of the olives off. I recommend wearing sunglasses or goggles, the olives can come flying at you from everywhere.

We had Manos, an experienced harvester, but most of us were first timers and we had a blast. After you shake the olives from the trees, you have to collect them in bags from the nets below the trees. You do your best to get all of the branches and leaves out from the olives and then bag up the olives. We got through about 40 of Clare’s trees before the rain hit around 3:00 and we had to take a break. I definitely would help with harvesting again, it was a great workout, a bonding day with my fellow expat ladies, and gave me a new appreciation for the olive oil I love.

Clare took the 16 bags of olives to be made into oil at the local station and we discovered it was deemed to be .4%, which is its acidity level and means it is extra virgin olive oil quality, which is very good. According to the International Olive Council (IOC), to qualify as extra virgin olive oil, the acidity must be less than 0.8%.

So that was my day at the olive harvest, if you ever want to join me most olives are harvested in Dec/January on Crete. It’s hard work but totally worth it for this amazing liquid gold, do you agree? Next time you are shopping for olive oil make sure to get the quality stuff- check your labels and find the acidity level-keep it below .8%. Also, I might be biased but I think Greek Olive oil is the best in the world.