Taste test – olive oil.

All oils don’t taste the same you know. Some have more of a pepper note, others are more vegetal. Every harvest produces a different flavour – it’s just like a grape harvest. What you like all depends on your personal taste and preferences. Some are ok to make a salad dressing from and some are, quite frankly, too good to throw into a dressing. The best oils widely available in South Africa are extra virgin – meaning that they have been gently handled and pressed,with no heat or chemicals used.  

A selection of oils.

This week our taste buddies tasted eight widely available brands. Preferences were quite clear. The oils we tasted, along with some of the taste buddies comments, were as follows;  

1. Olive Pickers. 1l R79.99.    Straw coloured. Sharp taste.   

2. Bertolli. 500ml. R77.99.    Peppery. Oily. Nice.  

3. Pick n’Pay. 500ml. R79.99.    Smooth. Insipid. Bland.  

4. Vesuvio. 500ml. R67.99.    Mild. Slight spicy note.  

5. Morgenster. 250ml. R59.99.     Strong peppery aftertaste. Bitter.  

6. Costas. 500ml.R73.99.    The palest of them all. Lacked flavour. Light. Inoffensive.  

7. Willow Creek. 500ml. R87.99.    Great colour. Rounded flavour. Smooth. Rich.  

8. Woolworths.1l. R99.95.    Melted butter appearance. Strong smell. Slight pepper aftertaste.  

What’s with all the 99 cents? Why not charge R100, or R60, or R80? Do the supermarkets think we are all dummies and mistake R79.99 for R70? What happens to all the cents? Cent coins were abandoned years ago.  

Also, look at the price differences for most of the oils. The quality, in our tasters opinions, were not that different.  

More olive oils, some very expensive.

Yet R240 for a liter equivalent of Morgenster vs R79.99 a liter for Olive Pickers could not be justified. Morgenster must be spending a lot on marketing to charge that much.  

Now to our winner. It was Willow Creek by a clear mile. The tasters loved its smoothness and rounded flavours. And at R87.99, it was not cheap, but worth every cent. 

It’s also made from olives grown in South Africa. Only 20% of olive oil consumed in South Africa is made from South African olives. 

80% is imported!