Harvest drops

November: new olive oil

Greek olive harvests run through late autumn and winter. Oil from the first weeks of picking, pressed soon after, tastes greener and more peppery than the same oil months later. We sell two Protected Designation of Origin oils in 500 ml tins, each printed with the harvest year and the mill:

• Kolymvari Chanion Kritis PDO, from Kolymvari in western Crete (GR-M), mostly Koroneiki olives. Crete produces about a third of Greek olive oil.
• Kalamata PDO, from Messinia in the Peloponnese (GR-J). Read the Kalamata naming trap before buying Kalamata oil anywhere.

Tins, not glass, because tins keep light out and do not break in transit. Both oils are marked Being verified until their bottlers are signed.

Autumn: Kozani saffron

Crocus sativus flowers for a few weeks in autumn. In Kozani (GR-C) the flowers are picked by hand early in the day, and the three red stigmas of each flower are separated by hand and dried. About 150,000 flowers make one kilogram. One producers’ cooperative has held the exclusive right to harvest, sort, pack and sell Krokos Kozanis PDO since 1971, and every genuine pack comes through it.

We sell the cooperative’s own packs, 1 g and 4 g, never repacked. The saffron is a Wave 1 candidate: the cooperative sells directly, and our contract with it is not yet signed.