Is first cold pressed extra virgin olive oil the best quality?
First cold pressing is an outdated concept, but is still used as it is a mantra. Before the appearance of continuous manufacturing systems currently used in the vast majority of mills, the only extraction system for olive oil was that of presses (hydraulic press). After each harvest, the olives were deposited in stone mills or in beam presses that squeezed the fruits to obtain all their juice. The first juice that was extracted and cold pressed directly was of higher quality than those obtained on subsequent pressings. At the present, extra virgin olive oil is produced using cold extraction with centrifuges at a temperature of less than 27C, a system that guarantees maximum quality by preserving all the organoleptic and nutritional properties of the olive juice intact.