Liz Tagami is a 6th generation Californian, who has been involved in defining and nurturing the Lucero Olive Oil brand for over 16 years. She’s a specialty food and cooking equipment industry veteran with 4 decades of international business experience. She and her husband, Donald, now own the Lucero brand and American Olive Farmer website and marketplace for all things olive oil related!

This week, as we sip both wine and olive oil (Best.Interview. Ever!) we cover:

• What does extra virgin really mean???
• The hot topic of the health benefits of olive oil
• How to store your olive oil

Be sure to Tune in next week for your Olive Oil 102!

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Liz: And I'd say that was probably the primary driver. And secondarily, it's the health benefits that we're learning about. I hope we could talk about both because, you know, for me, I like to lead with the, the aspect of pleasure. Um, of course being healthy is a good part of that.

Nikki: This week we are going to be doing an olive oil 101. So a couple of years ago I was introduced to Liz Tagami who is a fascinating individual. She lives just a couple hours north of me and she has over 35 years of experience working in product development and retail for brands we all know and love like Williams Sonoma, Cost Plus World Market, Harry and David, She even has a background developing curriculum for cooking schools, but about 16 years ago, she stepped away from all of that and started her own business specializing in olive oil.

Nikki: And I just was really struck by her, not only knowledge and wisdom of olive oil, but her passion, especially now that she is the one making this, these beautiful oils. So she's going to break down all of the questions and the myths and the. Confusion that people have around what makes extra virgin olive oil extra virgin, and is that really better?

Nikki: And, uh, we even talk about the perfect pairing. So I think you'll find it really interesting and helpful, especially if you're like me and you're someone that loves olive oil, but maybe don't know a whole lot about it. And there was so much information to share that she and I spent a good amount of time together, uh, on our recording.

Nikki: So I've split it into part one and part two. So this week you're in for your 101, your great introduction. And, uh, next week we'll build upon it with olive oil 102. Here we go with Liz Tagami.

Nikki: Cheers my friend. Here's to your first podcast. I cannot believe this is your first time on a

Nikki: Cheers. Cheers.

Liz: My mouth is singing.

Nikki: I can't say anything about it because I made it. So I have to be quiet and let you say whatever you're going to say. And that can be now or later.

Liz: Oh, can I just say juicy? That's a great. And my socks, if I had socks on, they'd be rolling up and down. I love this wine. Before, um, we joined the session formally on the first pour.

Liz: I set the glass down and we do something in olive oil tasting when we're talking about aroma and it's not universal. I learned this from a taster in Spain. He said, you know, if you can detect the aroma at arm's length, that's, that's a 10. That's 10 fruity. If you have to stick your nose all the way in the glass, then, you know, that's really like zero or one.

Liz: Nikki's, uh, for those of you who have not yet tasted this, uh, or experienced this wine, this is a 10 fruity, uh, for, for me, just, you know, coming right out of the bottle. And the flavor does not disappoint.

Nikki: Well, thank you. That's a, that's a new thought for me about smelling from arm's length. I'm going to use that.

Nikki: And even though I have notoriously short arms, I say that I have T Rex arms. You know, arms, generally a good measurement. So enough about me, we're here to learn about you, my friend. So first and foremost, thank you for being here. I know that you're busy. I know that you have a lot going on and farming and in business and in speaking and all the things that you do.

Nikki: How did you get into this world? How did this come to be?

Liz: Gosh, uh, I'll try to keep it as the short version and that just to say, you know, I'm a Californian, I'm a sixth generation Californian. So we grew up with the bounty around us, um, and that said, my mom was a product of the convenience era. So she wasn't a scratch cook.

Liz: And we had food of Italy, China, India. And I was in high school, so my boyfriend at the time, and now my husband, and I would go through these and we would like read the cookbooks and do things. Whoa, whoa,

Nikki: whoa, whoa. Did you marry your high school sweetheart?

Liz: And you had to, it had to be olive oil. And I'm sure it went into the cupboard and, you know, It came out if you needed it again for a recipe. It wasn't like that's what was used every day. Later on, I was, uh, in college, I worked for a kitchenware shop in Oakland. Uh, larger than life, uh, personality, Bill Hughes ran John A.

Liz: Brown kitchenware, which was a. A wonderful store at a time when, uh, independent kitchen shops were abundant. And John A. Brown was where people in the East Bay shopped. Bruce, um, Adele's taught there, Barbara Tropp taught there. Joyce Goldstein came to us and special ordered her pasta maker for Square One when she opened the restaurant back in the day.

Liz: But I was in a liberal arts college that didn't really have music performance. You guys can't see me, but

Nikki: my jaw is wide open. I didn't know this about you, music performance, um, instrumental, vocal.

Liz: Tell me more. Yeah, I, I, I'm a, I was a flute player, very serious flute player. And I decided to drop out of school.

Liz: And go to the conservatory, uh, as a music performance major. And that summer I thought, what am I doing? All of the support I have at college. Cause I went to Mills college on scholarship and in student loans and working three jobs. So I told the conservatory, I changed my mind and Mills take me back. And I switched to a modern European history.

Liz: I'd already been in retail since I was 15. So, Bill brought in something called Kimberly Olive Oil, which was a California producer. And they were known for their, uh, wine vinegars. They had a red wine vinegar, a white wine vinegar in three, seven, in little splits with a sloped shoulder. Mm hmm. Very cute.

Liz: You mean there's more than one? From a tree? Right? Like, well, oh, I know, I know. There's green and black, right? Green and black. And some of them have pimentos. Yeah. So they came back and said these are mission olives and the guy nodded sagely and says okay, okay, true California variety. Mission olive is the only native variety.

Liz: It's all of self hybridized and so the story is that starting Argentina, Peru, Chile, you know, all the way up to California when the Jesuits came as missionaries and brought grape cuttings and, uh, slips for olive trees and planted them for themselves, olive trees. Like apples will self hybridize and they became something new.

Liz: Which was where the home of Lindsay Olives, the canned olives, right? And, uh, that kind of stayed with me. Then while I was at Williams Sonoma, um, we had a chance to start buying olive oil on a regular basis. So I always had 750 ml on the counter. My husband was at the time a professional cook. So we always had olive oil.

Liz: And, you know, industry events that are kind of go deeper because you've got the corporate demands. And I stopped by the booth for the California olive oil council and asked, started asking some questions. And the director was great. She said, you know, you pay me. And I think it was like, write a check for 50 bucks and you can come to our annual meeting in Sonoma.

Liz: I missed that whole thing about, um, the judgment of Paris and everything. So I was a little kid, right? Napa was the schoolyard taunt. And, you know, coming from out of state, you might not know this. But that's where the state mental institution was. The mental hospital. Uh huh. In Napa. So, on the playground.

Nikki: 200 a quarter liter mils of olive oil, which is Yes, like a, a third of bottle wine bottle.

Nikki: You knew that's how I was gonna measure in seven.

Liz: Well, that's, that's how I, that's how I think it. Okay. I, I think in seven fifties, okay. People go, oh, how many liters? I say, well, it's, it's a half

Nikki: bottle

Liz: of

Nikki: wine. Is is our benchmark in our world for sure. So that's per year. Yes. We talking

Liz: milli years. per year and per capita average.

Liz: Okay. So from 250 to 100 to 1, 500 milliliters, which is great. This is, this is U S U S consumers, more and more people. And, you know, they're being led by a couple of things, Nikki, they're being led by just that whole thing about there's more than one kind of olive. You know, when people understand that there's more than one kind of grape and then chocolate tastings and beer tastings and cheese tastings, olive oil tastings, aren't that far removed.

Liz: And I'd say that was probably the primary driver. And secondarily, it's the health benefits that we're learning about. I hope we could talk about both because, you know, for me, I like to lead with the, the aspect of pleasure. Of course, being healthy is a good part of that,

Nikki: but I, I would like to, if we can start with kind of a good foundation.

Liz: Right. Well, so, uh, olive oil grating, uh, is very specific, both with chemistry and with sensory aspects, organoleptic, if you will. I'd say that the easiest way to approach it is binary. If an olive oil is made solely by mechanical means, and that's the, that's the exact nomenclature, solely by mechanical means, it's called virgin.

Liz: If it, and I didn't even use the word extra, it's just virgin at that point. If, uh, something is used to chemically extract the oil, like in the seed oil industry. It's typical to use heat, pressure, and hexane, or sometimes benzene, to extract, because those are more difficult. Think of those little seeds, right?

Liz: So the least expensive, the easiest way to get an olive harvested is by gravity. You let the fruit get so ripe that it falls from the tree. And at that point. It's already beginning to ferment and when it's on the ground quickly becomes a form of compost. You have anaerobic fermentation. That's a defect called fustiness.

Liz: And it's the, aside with the, even if it's completely sterile at the beginning, the fact is that they are overripe and fermented and that's going to affect the aroma and the flavor.

Nikki: To me that word pure in that context, how you just described it then is a bit misleading. No? No. No.

Liz: Well, it's unfortunately a marketing term, and yeah, you know, I only eat pure olive oil.

Liz: Well, it's like, that's actually, by definition, uh, it means it's been refined. Okay. So safflower, corn oil, peanut oil, avocado oil, all of those are refined oils. They have, because of the nature of the oil itself, they have to go through a refining process. Now, back to Dominic's question specifically about.

Liz: Extra virgin. Remember I mentioned there's something called virgin. Mm hmm. If you have an oil solely by mechanical means, just that nice family goes out, they crush the olives, and it's got some defect. Oh, you know, some bad olives got in it, and it's no, it's, I've got some fustiness. It becomes virgin. Mm hmm.

Liz: The idea of extra virgin is that not only does it have no defects, but it has a certain level of aroma. And A chemistry, this idea that you've made the standard, you are extra virgin. This will, uh, indicate to me that it's going to be a pleasant culinary experience and more healthful than something that's already starting to ferment.

Liz: Well, that was a standard from decades ago. Madrid changed that 2. 8. Well, The USDA says 0.5, California says 0.3. Well, no wonder, and in fact

Nikki: consumers are confused. There's no one and many of us standard.

Liz: There's no one standard. And many of us in California, when we have a new oil and we have it tested, it's 0.1, 0.13.

Liz: It's really hard if you've got. Good quality fruit and no delay to the mill. It's really hard to make a bad oil.

Nikki: Like point one, that measurement. Tell me again, what is that measuring?

Liz: Okay. Um, let me just say as an aside that we now have, uh, measures way beyond free fatty acid. We have measures that can look at things in a much more sophisticated way. So, you know, now that we have these measures and we can use them to help ourselves to be better producers, there is something that's really important in all of this.

Liz: And that is when people say, what's the best olive oil, it's the one that you love. If somebody tells me that their grandmother. If their grandmother in Greece gives them five liters from their family and they take it and they keep it under the sink and they use it all year long, and if that happens to be fusty, or have olive fly or by the end of the 12 months become rancid before the next harvest.

Liz: And what is it? What is a fermented olive taste like? Well, it tastes like canned olives. It tastes briny. It tastes like, uh, it's reminiscent of cheese or salami, which is

Nikki: probably preferred and or maybe nostalgic for some people, like when it began, right? Like childhood. It's

Liz: desired. It's desired. So again, in matters of taste, there's no dispute.

Liz: But that same token, you know, you have a very fresh olive oil. It's very clean in the mouth. If there's no defects and just to get the fruit, I think you need to do something that is very complex and maybe a little bit muddy and, you know, maybe you'd call it barnyard if it were something. And so I don't have virgin oils.

Liz: Yeah, I'd like to say one last thing and I know I'm on a soapbox here, but if you are your doctor tells you your cardiologist that you need extra virgin olive oil to lower your inflammation and you're paying for an extra virgin. And it's defective. If it is rancid or fermented, then you need to get your money back because you're not getting what you paid for.

Liz: That's our beef, I think, in the industry, is mislabeling. If it's virgin, it's virgin. If it's black, it's black. If it's pure, it's pure. That's fine. There's plenty of room, you know, for any kind of oil. But if, if you're paying for extra virgin, it better be giving you, it better have all the right octane.

Nikki: How do you know?

Liz: Well, I'll challenge you there, Nikki, because UC Davis did a study where they asked consumers if, which olive oil they liked.

Liz: And, of course, time has passed, but those consumers, um, the majority of them said they preferred the rancid oil.

Nikki: Because it's what they're familiar with, because I think most people are not storing it correctly and it's past its date, and to them that's the baseline of what they think it tastes like. Yes?

Liz: Well, we were wringing our hands when we saw the results, uh, all of us. I was in the, the sensory lab when they were talking about them, and somebody piped up from the back of the room and said, you asked the wrong question. Mm hmm. The question isn't, which do you like? The question should have been, which olive oil is fresh?

Liz: Mm,

Nikki: yeah.

Liz: And they would have been able to get that. And having run a tasting room and had little kids even who can tell you which one is fresh, it's different.

Nikki: Yeah.

Liz: Do you remember the smell of Play Doh?

Nikki: Very much so. I can recall it instantly.

Liz: What's the aroma of crayons? Both of those are the smell of rancidity. They have high oil content and they're all rancid. So your olive oil should not smell like Play-Doh,

Nikki: which to me smells a little like paint is what I something and that well ke there are ketones.

Liz: There's,

Nikki: there's when you start

Liz: looking at ketones, yeah. And when we're talking about rancidity, it's important to remember that that's something that happens after the olive is and harvested and milled and bottled. There could be gorgeous gold medal, best of show oils. That if they're not stored the right way, or if they're kept too long, will eventually become small like Play Doh.

Liz: Okay, so I'm

Liz: Okay, well this is an easy one for people who, uh, are listening to a wine podcast, because our recommendation is cellar temperatures. Ambient temperatures in most homes are a little bit too warm.

Liz: So, certainly away from the stove. Heat, light, air are not good. So, um, in wine, you probably talk about headspace. You know, in the bottle as you start drinking out. So, if there's headspace in your bottle, if you have a bottle of olive oil and it's taking too long to consume, It may become oxidized. So, you know, even if it's got a two year shelf life, that's unopened,

Nikki: right?

Liz: Once you open it, you should consume it within probably six weeks, you know, I would say, or decanted into a smaller bottle or put some of your

Nikki: into a smaller bottle. So you have less, you can do that, or

Liz: you could top it with some nitrogen. If you have one of those little things that you use for

Nikki: wine preservation, you can do that on your heel.

Nikki: Like wine.

Nikki: You mentioned about where you store it. What's interesting to me is if you go in most people's kitchens, especially if they like to cook. Most people have a thing of olive oil next to the stove because that's convenient of where you're using it. But is it not the worst place to keep it because of the heat?

Liz: It is. And you know, we have ours within arm's reach of the burners as well. And you just got to try to keep it moved away when you get the burner on, you know, so you've got it within arm's reach. Do that, but then don't keep it there next to the, next to the hob, as they say, you know, just that moved off.

Liz: Um, and we go through olive oil really fast, so we have no danger. I'm sure you do not.

Liz: Well, belief makes it sound like a religion. Mine is my religion,

Nikki: so

Liz: it's okay. The science, the science backs up that two to four tablespoons a day, uh, lead to a 30 percent reduction in cholesterol. degenerative diseases, enhanced, uh, cognitive function, a bunch of other things. There are over 200 micronutrients.

Liz: And going back to the science, we know it's almost an embarrassment of riches what a good olive oil can do for you. It sounds like snake oil. Because it, you talk about diabetes and cholesterol and high blood pressure and dementia, but this is really important. The European culture, where you are enjoying leisurely meals with people you love.

Nikki: the time to enjoy, the

Liz: time to enjoy it. And, and, um, Nicky, I might've shared this story with you before, but I'd like your listeners to know this as well.

Liz: Don't take it like cod liver oil in the morning. And now in, you know, 14 years later, we're learning about bioavailability. Oh, great. Turmeric is good for you, but it's even better if you have it with black pepper. Mm hmm. Really? Okay. What about what, what do we not know? Right. And the thing is that these things give us pleasure.

Liz: Well, my goodness, Nikki, if, if you feel great about your, you know, just eating the two tablespoons, okay, but if you mixed it into a smoothie, if you made it into your coffee drink in the morning, if you fried an egg for six grams of protein and you had a little shallow fry in a cast iron pan for a little bit of iron, you know, think of all the good things you're doing and you're getting that flavor.

Liz: So I would say, Sure, uh, if you want to drink olive oil in the morning, but I think there's a much more pleasant way of having your dose. Speaking

Nikki: of this pleasure, like my mouth is watering, can we taste one together? One of your beautiful two bottles that you sent me with these very, very special, your own, um, Beautiful blue glass tasting

Liz: glasses.

Liz: Just

Nikki: looking at this bottle, like, since it arrived last week, I'm just, I'm like, I'm caressing it and I'm hugging it. It's gorgeous.

Liz: Well, the nice thing about Arbequina is that it really illustrates one of the phases of agriculture in California. This is new technology to be able to make an oil like this.

Liz: So I'm going to go ahead and pour. Into my blue glass, which we do because color should matter. If the oil is brown, it's oxidized, but you know, straw, yellow, dark, emerald, green, it really doesn't matter in terms of whether it's extra virgin. And I'm going to go ahead and do a little pour.

Nikki: I love, by the way, on these beautiful glasses that people can get on your website, which of course we're going to share, it's got the T on the bottom.

Nikki: So that's branded because you had these made. Is that right?

Liz: One of the things that we can do, Nikki, I'm going to just hold my oil in my hand. And you'll notice there's a little bit of indentation. It fits right into this part of your hand, so it's really nice. Yeah. And. You may go like this to kind of create a little bit of friction and a little bit of heat.

Nikki: So you've got the base of the glass in one palm, and then the other hand you're twisting the glass.

Nikki: Twisting, and, and,

Liz: right, so, Nikki, you're right handed?

Nikki: Yes.

Liz: So you have the glass in your left hand. Now take your right hand and put it over the top so that you're trapping those volatile aromas as you spin around there, and just, and we can just do this while we talk a little bit about Arbequina. Okay.

Liz: to, to take fruit off the trees more readily. And in order to do that, they would have to plant the olive trees more close together, and they would have to keep them pruned in the same shape of the inside of the harvester, which becomes a hedgerow. And I think there's only eight varieties in the world that will take this kind of heavy pruning.

Liz: Arbuchena is self fertile. But it is more productive when it has pollinizers like Koroniki and Arbasana, so you'll very frequently see that. And I think, in terms of calling something 100 percent Arbikina, or just Arbikina, you have to have at least 90 percent in the state of California. So many producers have a field blend.

Liz: So you're buying our Burkina, but it's got a little bit of these other pollinators in it, which can be very interesting. It kind of mirrors wine a

Nikki: little bit, I think, in the labeling and the leeway.

Liz: And the original super high density Arbequina orchards in the world are right off of I 5, uh, in Artois. And they are still productive. So what does this mean in English? What does this mean to you as somebody who likes to cook? It means that, uh, I'll give you an example of the orchard that, that is behind me here at two, two and a half miles, 135, 000 trees.

Liz: Does it vibrate the trees

Nikki: and then they fall down into

Liz: the depths? Is that kind of what I'm envisioning? Imagine a small house driving over a row of trees that the top of the tree is about seven feet. So the harvester itself, I think is 15 feet high. And as it's driving over, there are six bow arms that come out and they do vibrate.

Liz: Where there is a driver pulling a gondola. And the reason why I say three men is that one guy's driving the harvester, one guy's driving the gondola, and they're keeping it full and then they radio in. If it's getting full, they get the next guy in to go right behind him and fill up the next gondola while the, while he parks it into a, you know, a bigger, uh, unit to take to a mill.

Nikki: Yeah.

Liz: So that's where we're hauling, you know, 20 tons of olives, uh, per session and these big mills like California Olive Ranch. And when I had a mill, uh, at Lucero. You know, you're, you're milling five tons an hour. So 100 tons an hour comes through in big truckloads. And it means that the cost of oil per ounce is so much lower.

Liz: And because you do it, you go from tree to mill so quickly. You don't have a problem with fermentation. Now you can get it there right away. And same as wine,

Nikki: same as wine harvest.

Liz: We're able in California with the benefit of the, how the investment was made in the timing, we had the technology to. Purpose built the mills to accept the tonnage that was being grown, right? Anybody who, who says bad things about old world olives are, they're being naughty because there are some, um, mind blowing, amazing high quality oils coming out of these places, Tunisia, everywhere, just beautiful people, hardworking farmers who make you beautiful product.

Liz: The thing is that if you're in a country with millions of trees and no infrastructure to process those, and the pressure to just make sure you have the metric tons to re, you know, it is a commodity then, and it's traded differently. It's traded in 20 ton flexi tanks and not in little, uh, splits, 375

Nikki: bottles.

Liz: Yes, I'd say that that's very likely, you know, they, they couldn't tell you, uh, exactly the orchard or the, the circumstance, you know, and those commoditized oils, I always say indeterminate origin and age, olive oil.

Liz: In those circumstances, is traded and put into big tanks? Simple answer is yes. It's not going to be very high quality because you wouldn't put your oil in plastic, number one. You wouldn't have it clear, number two. And the fact is that when you have it in that size, it's about moving big volumes. And, you know, it's all about just getting efficient bottling.

Nikki: But consume within four weeks of opening. Most people who buy those big glug, glug, glug jugs, you're not telling me that you're going through that in four weeks.

Liz: Yeah. You know, again, in matters of taste, there's no dispute. How are they using it? What are their expectations? I've had customers apologize to me.

Liz: They buy my oil. They subscribe to my oil. Then they say, kind of conspiratorially, you know, I also buy this Two liters in a pack at Costco. It's such a great price and the Kirkland brand. And they're from Italy and they're really, they're, they're cringing. It's like, well, I happen to have been in the bottling plant in Italy, in Western Tuscany when, when they had their oil on the line.

Liz: So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's not bad oil. It's not, can it, can it work? Can it go, can it go rancid like any other will? Yeah, uh, but typically, and if you, if you have a big family and you're using a lot of oil, it's a good value.

Nikki: Yeah.

Liz: It's a good value.

Nikki: Okay. But, but it's a good value check. Then why should people purchase what you're making?

Liz: Because it's a different experience. You know, you're, you're buying local. It's got a lower carbon footprint. You might get a different complexity. I have customers who buy both and it's, it's, it's because of how they use the oil. If we hadn't had the crisis of these drought years and some other things, I would go back to selling larger format again.

Liz: And I would like to in the future, we're just not there yet as we're coming back. But, and I just wanted to really be clear that there are bad commodity and good commodity maybe. Yep.

Liz: Yes, and I put mine down, but let's just start off, we always start with aroma.

Liz: Okay. So I'm going to ask you, Nikki. Does this seem more green or ripe to you? Can you, can you, you know, actually the first question is, is this fresh to you? Do you smell any Play Doh?

Nikki: No, no, I smell fresh olives, yeah. Oh my god, my mouth is watering. What was the question that you asked me? Does it seem green?

Liz: Yeah, so when we, when we think about it, um, After, when you taste a while, you can start to detect, if you know an olive's varietal characteristic, how does it express itself when it's green versus ripe? Some of them are fairly close, but some of them are pretty distinctive. Okay, when we taste as olive oil people, we, we look at three things, and those three things have three descriptors.

Liz: We're rating it in terms of its intensity. We're rating it in terms of, is this a medium intensity? I can't smell it at arm's length. But it's pretty, it's pretty nice here, kind of, you know, mid, mid range. So I'd say this is like a four, maybe. Smells so good. I want to taste it. It is. It's really good. And I'm getting mostly green, but some ripe fruit as well.

Liz: Yeah. For me, you know, and, uh, which, which foots with when it, the period of time it was harvested.

Nikki: In wine, we talk about if there's a greenness in wine, it's like, That pyrazine, veggie, you know, vegetal, like bell pepper note. I think I understand. That's not what we're referring to when we say green in olive oil.

Nikki: Green in this situation just equals a freshness. It's

Nikki: So this was harvested in November.

Liz: But yeah, I'm, I'm getting a lot of floral.

Liz: Yes. Oh, it smells amazing. You know, I don't know if it's jasmine flowers or something. Right. The second thing is bitterness. That's in the mouth. And that is, but what you would think is there's so much stringity to it and that's a positive attribute. And we look at intensity there as well. Yep. And then when we swallow it, to the retronasal, you smell much more with the, with everything in the back of the throat.

Liz: So we do something called strappaggio. We aerate, and then as we swallow, we get the retronasal then. So we, it is part of it, and that's the bitterness, that's the cough, which I believe was one of the questions, though.

Nikki: That was Morgan's question. Yeah, Morgan said That was right on top of it. I thought that was a great question.

Liz: We now know, Is it only adapted 20 years ago? No. Is it oleocanthal? No, it's oleocanthal. Oleocanthal. Oleocanthal. It's what is, it's like the miracle phenol of all the phenols.

Liz: And I measured the oleocanthal for these oils particularly. Of the 25 that were measured, 12 percent of it was, which is like great. So I'm going to go ahead and taste now and I'm going to do the little I need to stop asking

Nikki: you questions so we can taste it, but I have so many.

Liz: And Donald brought out my pizza.

Liz: So I'm going to,

Nikki: I'm just going to copy you on the screen, how you taste it.

Liz: What I did, Nikki, is it was already warm from my hand. And when we were talking, But when I had it in my mouth, one of the things we learn as tasters is that the chart they told us about in elementary school about where our taste buds were, everybody's mapped differently.

Nikki: aerated it. Strapagio. Italian for what? We should know this. I should know this. I don't that slurping

Liz: side. I know, and I, I used to be able to define it literally, but now I just rp we'll go with that.

Liz: I, I think it's, I mean, it's just, uh, that yes thing. And so as you do that, you're drawing, drawing it across your, your buds and back into your throat. And as you you breathe, it goes back up into that retronasal. So I'm getting now, it didn't though, it didn't make me cough it. This one it did. I've got a little burn.

Liz: Mm-Hmm, . It's got a long finish. I still feel it in my throat as, as, as we talk. And the green apple is much more present to me now than it was on the nose, and I'm also getting some almond. And that's the, that's the, the ripeness.

Nikki: Almond is a note in olive oil. Would you put that in the fruitiness category?

Liz: And any kind of, you know, from grasses to flowers to fruits. They're all considered that amazing.

Nikki: I'm so happy to be here this afternoon, doing this with you and having this olive oil in my hand and about to be in my mouth. This is so awesome. Thank you.

Nikki: The suspense! Now you're wondering, how did it taste, Nikki? Was it everything that it was built up to be? Well, you'll just have to tune in next week to your Olive Oil 102 when Liz and I continue our awesome conversation. conversation. I mean, how fascinating. If you would like to purchase her beautiful oils from her website, the Arbequina and Ascolano are the two that we discussed.

Nikki: Thank you so much for that, Liz, and thank you for spending time with our listeners. And as always, if you'd like to try the beautiful Solovato Sangiovese that I made and that paired so beautifully and that Liz was so complimentary of, link in the show notes for solovatowines. com. And you can use Podlistener for 10 percent off your order.

Nikki: We're giving discounts on olive oil. We're giving discounts on wine. I mean, come on, does it get better than this? And if you have someone in your life who you think would enjoy this information as much as you did, please share this episode from most podcast platforms. There's a little arrow where you can literally send it as a text message or an email to someone and let's spread the love.