Visit to the ‘Kyriakos’ Olive Oil Mill

During our trip to Aegina Island, we listened intently to the explanations of the miller at the ‘Kyriakos’ Olive Oil Mill in Kipseli about the production of local olive oil. He explained that he only runs a small family business and only processes olives from the island. The olive harvest had only just begun, as we had already observed during today’s walk through the olive groves.

The olives are transported from a chute, cleaned, and mechanically ground into a paste. This mass is then fed into a screw conveyor. The pressure increases, and the oil flows out, so it’s not really pressed, but rather squeezed. Since pressure always generates heat, cooling may also be necessary. This is ensured by a kind of “water cooling”, as the tubes with the extraction shafts are surrounded by water.

A maximum of approximately 40°C must not be exceeded to comply with what is known as “cold pressing”. This is the only way to guarantee that the result is a natural oil that still contains all the valuable ingredients, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and flavour and aroma compounds.

In the subsequent steps, filtration or sedimentation takes place, producing a clean oil. The pulp or “press cake” from this first pressing can still be used to extract further oil at higher temperatures or processed further as feed, in food, or cosmetics.

At the end, there was an oil tasting, where it was poured over white bread – a full, fruity taste, not too bitter. I would have loved to take a canister of fresh olive oil directly with me, but only large containers were available, which would have been too heavy to carry or take as luggage. This reminded me of my first trip to Greece in 1996. Back then, two of us bought a 5-litre canister of olive oil each at the duty-free shop at the old Athens-Ellinikon airport upon departure and took it as hand luggage – our fellow travellers chuckled. But back then, shopping at duty-free was still genuinely cheap and worthwhile.

Refreshed, we made our way back to explore the port district of Aegina town in the afternoon, before taking the ferry back to Athens for the last evening.