Introduction to the Best Types Of Olives:
There are many different types of olives and each different class of olive often comes in different sizes colours and variations, this means there are now believed to be over 500 unique types of olive varieties or cultivars globally, grown across an estimated 800 million trees. Now that is a lot of olives.
You may be wondering then how we have been able to simplify this vast amount to just 3 varieties. The simple answer is, we can’t! I know, I’ve already contradicted myself and we haven’t even gotten to the olives yet, but bear with me. There is no way we could fairly compare 500 different types of olives to one another without losing the plot a bit, also a lot of the varieties have such minor differences in size and colour and may well taste identical.
What we decided to do when choosing our olives was to use the types of olives we already loved and then build our flavours from this base and we are constantly trying new olive cultivars in order to try and create new flavours for you to indulge in.
Maybe I should have called this list ‘The 3 Best Types Of Olives, So Far’, but I didn’t, so lets just jump into the list shall we.
1. Mammoth Green Pitted Halkidiki Olives
Let’s kick this list off with the best of the bunch shall we. In our opinion, Mammoth Green Pitted Halkidiki Olives are by far the most superior olive we have had the pleasure of tasting to date. They are incredibly succulent, salty, and extremely versatile. By this I mean you can use this type of olive in many different flavours, and it holds up perfectly. We use it in 90% of the mixes we produce and if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, I don’t know what will.
This Olive is grown in a very specific region of Greece and it is from this region that it inherits it’s name. This region is called the Halkidiki region and is next to Mount Athos in southern Greece. It is a large green olive with a beautiful texture, it’s size also means it is one of the easiest olives to stuff with things such as chillis, garlic, peppers etc.
Some of our favourite flavours that we produce using this olive are as follows.
Or if you’d prefer, you can buy this olive unflavoured by clicking here. All we add to make up this flavour is some local rapeseed oil and a splash of lemon juice.
2. Whole Nocellara Del Belice Olives
Second on this list of the 3 best types of olives is the famously bright green, Nocellara Del Belice Olive. These olives come from Valle del Belice, a region of Southwestern Sicily and are a medium sized, buttery yet crisp tasting olive with a slight crunchy texture. The stone remains in this olive, this provides a fuller flavour and keeps the olive sealed and therefore fresher. This olive variety is used as a table olive and is also used to produce olive oil.
We love this olive completely but we only use it in one olive flavour, what’s that about! We believe this olive is faultless as it is and would not benefit from flavouring, that is why we only add a drizzling of Bell and Loxton local rapeseed oil to ensure they stay unadulterated.
If you’d like to get your own pack of Nocellara Del Belice Olives, click here.
3. Colossal Whole Kalamata Olives
Last but by no means least, is our Colossal Whole Kalamata Olive, a large black olive with the stone left in. These types of olives are the true front runner when it comes to black olives, they have a beautifully salty taste, partly due to the way they are naturally brine cured and they are seriously large, it really feels like you’ve got a mouthful of olives when you’re snacking on these. Much like the Nocellara Del Belice, we only add rapeseed oil to these olives to ensure they remain as close to the original flavour as possible.
Kalamata olives are so named because they originate from the region of, you guessed it; ‘Kalamata’. Kalamata is in the Southern Peloponnese peninsula of Greece however they are now grown all over the world. The name ‘Kalamata’ however is protected and can only be applied to olives that are actually grown in the correct location in Greece. Those olives grown outside of this area use the name ‘Kalamon Olives’.
Click here if you’d like to take a look at our Kalamata Olive.
More Information:
If you’d like to see what other different types of olives we offer, please feel free to visit our shop in which you can purchase olives directly and have them sent directly to your door anywhere in the UK with free postage.
If there are other topics you’d like to see us cover please feel free to leave a comment and we will do our best to cover it for you.
Until next time.
William Price
West Country Olives
