Honest Toil Olive Oil: taste this year's harvest
by Holly Thomson
Honest Toil is a small-scale olive oil collective, run by Tom and Juli, on Greece’s western Peloponnese. Working with their own groves and a close-knit community of small-scale farmers, they make single-variety Koroneiki extra virgin olive oil that’s unfiltered, unblended and cold-pressed within hours of picking.
Here, Tom shares an exclusive insight into this year’s harvest, and what makes Honest Toil so special.
What makes you really excited when you taste an oil, what are you looking for?
The lifespan of olive oil starts ticking the moment the fruit leaves the tree; it's incomparably best when fresh from the press. I think we're always looking for that "wow" we felt the first time we poured our olives into the press here and watched the juice flow out an hour later. When you taste real extra virgin olive oil for the first time, it can be a real shock: the colour is neon green, the texture is thick, and the flavour is a real kick of peppery punch, not so much tasting 'notes', but more of a punch in the face of fresh-cut grass.
Can you tell us a bit about what we can expect from this year's olive oil?
We’ve just about finished the harvest, it’s been a tricky year. We did have the warm summer and rainy autumn that usually helps with plumping up the olives, but with climate change, we’re facing a variety of new pests that are encouraged by warm and wet conditions, so the yields are a lot lower than usual and the olives are ripening a lot more quickly. This climate crisis is very real when you're so up-close with the seasons and what they mean for the usual natural sequence of events.
Sometimes accepting reality like this matters more than hype. And for us, that’s always been the point, especially if we want to raise awareness around where our oil actually comes from and what it takes to make it.
It’s more delicate this year, which can work beautifully in lighter dishes - salads, drizzling over vegetables. The oil is an honest reflection of the season, the place, and the people who make it.
What difference does cold-pressing make to the oil?
I think not many people are aware of the fact that by definition, all extra virgin olive oils have to be cold-pressed - that is, the pressing process always has to be kept below 27 degrees. It's not some extra merit, it is one of the basic guidelines to call an olive oil extra virgin.
Cold-pressing preserves the olive’s purity as well as its nutrients. Once you start raising the temperature, you might be able to squeeze more oil out of the olives, but you’ll also lose those subtle aromas and raw intensity, not to mention the health benefits. Cold-pressing — and pressing the same day as picking — means you’re tasting the olive in its purest form. It’s not about efficiency, it’s about sharing as real an olive oil as it comes in the village here.
Would you say Greek oil has its own flavour profile generally? How would you describe it?
I’d say rather than the oil’s nationality, it’s more the micro-region, climate, olive variety, soil, even the pressing and picking practices that will have most influence on the oil’s flavour. Greek olive production is far more small-scale and less industralised than Spanish, for example. The most ancient and most widespread Greek olive variety, the Koroneiki (our oil is 100% made up of these tiny olives) gives a particularly punchy oil, a characteristic peppery finish, and one of the highest polyphenol counts.
I’d say Greek extra virgin olive oil - Koroneiki especially - tends towards the bold and grassy end of the spectrum compared to the more fruity Italian or Spanish ones. Our olives give a bright, fresh flavour, even in a softer season, and the taste is still radical compared with mass-market blends. It’s a flavour of the land, of small-scale farming, of the air during the harvest months, and of the grove itself. The oil is a real expression of this place.
Can you tell us a little about the community of growers, who you work with to create Honest Toil
Honest Toil isn’t just our trees — it’s a network of small-scale farmers in our village. Everyone here from the taverna owner to the village priest, to the guy who runs the petrol station/gyros shop will stop what they’re doing for the harvest and pick their olives for as long as it takes.
We've debated buying more trees, but always conclude we want to work with existing small-scale growers here, meaning keeping these traditions alive, and ultimately making sure the result stays honest, real, timeless.
The press is a real melting pot with olive oil being the common language - we wait together for our olives to be pressed, and often end up sharing some questionable home-made wine at the end of the day.
Keeping family-run village hubs of micro-scale growers going is really what keeps us motivated; olive oil here is a timeless social lubricant, rather than an exclusive club, and I think it’s so important to keep that alive.
As well as amazing flavour, part of the joy of Honest Toil is the beautifully designed bottles and tins - how did they come about?
From the very first days of making paper cut-out olive tree collages on our friend's kitchen floor, playing with labels has gone side-by-side with making the oil for us. We're lucky to be friends with as many talented artists as we are with farmers, so it always seemed obvious to play with having interesting labels. From the beginning - in 2009 - we wanted to share an olive oil that was direct, playful and available for refill against the backdrop of pretentious top-shelf options.
The evolving labels are another way for us to have this form of collaboration, more than having any specific “branding strategy”. I’ve been told it’s commercial suicide to change your branding every year, but it’s definitely more fun that way!
