Kangaroo Valley Olives Visit
Eager to be the first group to visit the newly opened Kangaroo Valley Olives cooperative, the Garden Group arrived on their doorstep just three days after the official opening.
Angela Jones could not have been more welcoming.
There are six olive growers from the Valley in the cooperative at the moment, but they hope more will become involved as the business grows. All the olives are hand picked, with the season starting in March, as they cannot be bruised if they are to be crushed for their oil.
Inside the building in Nugents Creek Road we were taken on a tour of the machines used to press the oil and to make tapenade from the olives that have been rejected for oil. At each stage Angela explained the system and the science involved and allowed us to have some hands-on experience with the tools required to test the salinity and Ph of the brine.
Firstly however the olives are barrelled within four to six hours of harvesting - hence the freshness with Valley olives - and the taste difference is obvious when compared to the ones I have been buying from the large supermarkets. The tasting area looks like a cornucopia of delights for olive lovers with produce ranging from the olives themselves to tapenades and oils (even a truffle oil made here in the Valley from Canberra's truffles, which Angela says is delicious poured over a good dark chocolate!).
After trying everything we needed we then drove to one of the larger olive groves in the Valley to see the trees with their tiny budding olives. While these trees are perhaps 20 years old that is nothing on the scale of olive growing; Angela says that it is reported that in Jerusalem there is an olive tree that was planted at the time of Jesus that is still growing. There are many varieties of olives being grown in the Valley so it is possible to try all of them and develop a favourite or two.
The Garden group has already begun to solve their Christmas present giving after this excursion to the factory.