OLIVES...
AN AEGEAN MIRACLE

Our knowledge of olives goes back centuries. We know the olive itself, we even know and use its seed and the olive tree, olive leaves, and of course, olive branches. We know the miracle of the olive.

We make plates, spoons, forks, tables out of its tree, and its fruit, of so many different tastes and colors, are never missing from our dining tables, its tasty oil penetrating our every moment and at every time of the day this is the olive as we know it. Olive oil is in the soap we use to clean and beautify our hair and skin... Its seeds are the stuff of worry-beads, bracelets, necklaces and other decorative jewelry... Its pulp is used in fertilizers and in fuel... It's food that nourishes, medicine that heals... From the tree to the fruit... all of it turns into benefit.

From the dark purple "kalamata" style to the pale green French "picholine" there are 700 types of olives. The color of olives changes according to their maturity at picking-time. Green olives are the ones that have been picked before maturity, the darker the color the more mature the fruit has grown.