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Comment by armchairhacker | Hacker News Reader

I get California Olive Branch “100% California” EVOO because I heard it was genuine. Do you know if this is true, and if not, which brands are?

I only add like 1tsp of oil to the pan when cooking so I can justify using the more expensive brands, though i don’t really taste a difference

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Once you heat it, the differences become negligible to nonexistent. Good-quality oils are most important in raw uses, such as dips and salad dressings.

It's a hassle to maintain a "cooking olive oil" and a "raw olive oil", so the worst you're doing is wasting a tiny bit of money for the convenience of keeping around just one bottle.

As for the particular brand you mention... yes, it's very well reputed. Being produced in the US, there are fewer opportunities for fraud that occur when importing mass-produced oils. (Imported artisan oils are often extremely good, but pricey because of the overhead.)

You probably would notice the difference if you were to compare it to other brands -- especially when the bottle is newly opened. In cooking... eh, I just use a bottle of whatever's cheap.

I think that is the brand I picked up at Walmart one time. And I really did notice the difference -- it had a more buttery texture, and was delicious on my salad.

That buttery flavor might have been canola oil mixed in.

> It's a hassle to maintain a "cooking olive oil" and a "raw olive oil"

I find the price difference(between supermarket extra virgin olive oil, and actually delicious stuff) is pretty significant (4x-5x). Well worth keeping around to bottles.

If one trusts Consumer Reports they do a study every so often on best tasting (one of the cheaper Trader Joe's brand came out on top with EVOO in the middle tier off the top of my head), though if you use only small amounts for cooking one may not be able to tell a big difference. Also some studies showed people preferred rancid oil! so who knows, what we grow up with probably has a heavy influence on taste preferences. You might want to try some white bread and maybe a little garlic mixed in your oil and use that as a dipping sauce to get a sense of the flavor (over just drinking it. :) ). UC Davis might have a California bent and be California ag sponsored but because it has an agricultural college there are plenty of studies originating there about olive oil. Just search UC Davis and olive oil.

> Also some studies showed people preferred rancid oil!

I was once in a casual, blind taste test at an Anheuser-Busch facility where at least half of the dozen testers preferred the beer whose kegs had been sitting out in the hot sun for two weeks, instead of the kegs of the same vintage that had been sitting in the refrigerated warehouse during that time.

As they say, "there's no accounting for taste."

People living in industrialized societies, especially the US, are accustomed to the taste of old food, and fresh food tastes wrong to them. Testing packaging that reduces the rate of oxidation exposed this taste preference: in tests many US people preferred slightly oxidized milk, etc., although objectively this is a form of spoilage. Similarly, some people prefer the distorted sound of LPs to accurately reproduced music. People prefer what they’re used to.

I can't stand even slightly rancid oils, and I've found that most people don't notice it at all until you point it out to them. Rancid vs fresh peanut butter is the most noticeable one to let people taste test next to each other. Once they identify the rancid smell and flavor they all agree the fresh is better. Though a couple of times I've hit people who just cannot tell the difference. I envy them.

> I get California Olive Branch “100% California” EVOO because I heard it was genuine. Do you know if this is true, and if not, which brands are?

Broadly speaking, get what you know and what's close.

Have a friend in Italy, Greece or Spain? Get it from them. Live in California? Get it from there. The longer the supply and trust chains for something like olive oil, the higher the chances of funny business.

the 100% california stuff is genuine, although a blend from california farms (so not single olive estate, which the best stuff is. i think they also sell single olive oils but they are very expensive). The blended stuff from south american olives is also probably real. It certainly tastes real if not as nice and peppery as the good stuff. If you're ever in northern california a lot of the wineries in sonoma / napa also grow and press olive oil, those are worth grabbing and savouring. wonderful by the spoonful.

I like that wherever I travel I can find Kirkland's EVOO. It's not the freshest but it's not fake (combined with low quality vegetable oils).

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