There’s something deeply satisfying in the first harvest. Watching a tree grow from a tiny sapling to producing its first season of fruit connects us to something historic and magical. And, even more so when you’re talking about olives. Olives are older than written history. Older, even, than writing.
We recently harvested olives from the trees surrounding our Mangawhai premises. These trees have grown and thrived in the winterless north and we have awaited a full harvest for a few years. This season the trees have been laden with olives and on a clear autumn day we spread tarpaulins over the ground and picked, and picked. Like so many before us, we shook the trees gently and watched as perfect green and purple fruit fell into our laps.
This particular harvest, of olives on autumn days, has been happening since the earliest of times, dating back to the 8th century BC. Our own harvest was destined to become olive oil and we enlisted the help of a local press to produce the golden liquid. Our efforts were well rewarded with 18 litres of oil being produced.
We were delighted with the quality of the oil, we can honestly say there’s nothing like freshly pressed olive oil drizzled over homemade bread! We were honoured to gift each bottle of oil to friends of Bennetts.
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