Two olive oil samples were sent last week. Not that difficult to tell them apart. Sample B had a very light colour, little aroma and simple taste. Sample A had a much more enticing hue, strident, grassy aroma and peppery finish to the flavour. Sample A I concluded must be a single variety, extra virgin olive oil. I wasn’t wrong. Sample A is Hojiblanca – a premium, single variety Extra Virgin Olive Oil, brand-new to the UK.
Unlike blended extra virgin olive oils, which are created from a mix of different olive varieties, new Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Andalusia in Spain is created using only the eponymous olive variety Hojiblanca – meaning ‘white leaf’ – so that it has a smooth, distinctive, high-quality taste and an extremely low acidity.
At just £3.49 for 500ml, Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil is affordable enough to be an everyday product (only 10p more than the market-leading ‘refined’, non-extra virgin oil that was the other sample) – and what’s more, it’s better for you, better for your cooking and offers a superior taste to refined olive oils. While in the UK we are traditionally taught to reserve EVOO for dipping and salads because of its higher price tag, in the Mediterranean they tend to use it for everything, as it is at a more affordable price.
Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil is now available in selected Tesco stores nationwide.
