So search the Internet for 'olive oil tasting bars in London', and what do you find?
Yes, it's a an olive oil tasting bar in London all right, and a very nice one too. That's London, Ontario.
Ontario, Canada. The Pristine Olive Tasting Bar at 462 Cheapside Street is that city's "first tasting bar to specialize in real, fresh, certified Ultra Premium extra virgin olive oils" and stocks 24 different olive oils from around the world for customers to taste. Find one you like and it can be poured into a flask and yours for up to $42 (£25) a litre.
But not a single olive oil tasting bar in London, England.
Over in north America, they're all at it. Today there are at least nine 'premium'-type olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting bars in Canadian cities. Most have opened within the last two years. Each bar has its own take on the perceived luxury and trendiness of extra virgin olive oil: The Olive Oil Emporium, Liquid Gold, Dana Shortt Gourmet, Pristine, the Unrefined Olive, Emulsify, Frescolio, Olive-me, Olive That!
In the United States - I haven't tried to count them - there must be hundreds of olive oil and vinegar tasting bars too (here's a partial list from The Olive Source). All driven by extra virgin oil's perceived desirability, entrepreneurial flair, and the services of a couple of smart olive oil importing companies.
But very few in Europe. And not one anywhere in the UK, as far as I can tell (with the exception, perhaps, of some oil behind the bar at a Somerset pub).
So why haven't Londoners in Britain taken to olive oil tasting bars?
The answer, in my opinion, is that we are much too sensible.
Yes, on the face of it getting people to taste and appreciate real extra virgin olive oil has to be a Good Thing. But several things need to be said about these tasting bars. Real extra virgin olive oil is much too important to leave to the trendy olive oil barristas.
First - in my opinion, they make extra virgin olive oil appear far too exclusive and uber-trendy, the expensive preserve of the rich and spoiled. This is Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Capital Letters.
It's true that a very few top quality extra virgin oils are, like some wines, so rare and delicious as to be sought after at almost any price. But in the real world, genuine extra virgin olive oil is something that has been part of everyday life for millions of farmers, smallholders and working class folk throughout the world - and should continue to be. In fact, in places like Italy and the South of France, it is. The difference nowadays is that almost all the 'olive oil' commonly available to us northern food-lovers through our supermarket economy is not the real thing at all.
Every Italian family has a few olive trees somewhere, and a nonna who's done the harvest ever since she was knee-high to a sickle. It's normal. Extra virgin olive oil is normal too, and you shouldn't have to go to a slick Californian-style oil tasting bar to experience it.
Second - at some tasting bars, it's said, you can't even be absolutely certain the premium oil you've bought at a premium price really is the genuine stuff. Sure, they say it is. They provide labels that look like scientidfic text books. But if you look at this thread on the Truth In Olive Oil blog, there seems good reason to believe some of it may not be what it is claimed.
And third - it looks depressingly like a fad. Fads are dangerous. When the Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil bubble bursts in a year or two, and all the tasting bars are charity shops again, the olive oil business will be back as it was - only worse. Unrealistic expectations will have been created, then dashed.
Much better to work for a world where you can simply turn up at your local supermarket and buy a litre of extra virgin oil confident that you know what you're getting, and at a price somewhat less than an olive tycoon's ransom. Not mixed, not blended, not refined, not chemical, just oil from a farmer's olive patch. Too much to ask? I don't think so. That's what this blog is all about.
Make sure you do have a real Extra Virgin season.
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