Our block of land in Kea – the northern-most island of the Cyclades – is slightly larger than an acre, and came with 20 or so aged almond trees, and 50 young olive trees planted by the previous owner.

We have a sample of all different kinds of olives: tiny round ones, almond-like Kalamata, juicy Pelion-like, and some extra large ones. These olive trees were our first priority when we moved here, 10 years ago.

After a serious drought and years of neglect, the trees barely survived the hardship of local construction; in short, the trees were in a lamentable condition. We hired an expert to prune them properly, and then we dug trenches around their trunks and fed them manure.

In the spring of 2001, as we watched them thrive, bursting with new leaves and bunches of buds that soon became flowers, we had high expectations. We even drew up lists of friends whom we would invite in the fall for weekends of olive harvesting. But we spoke too soon; the olive flies got to the fruits first, leaving us with only a few black and green olives, painstakingly picked from baskets overflowing with pierced and rotten fruit.

Although our first crop couldn’t be pressed to produce oil, and indeed most of it ended up in the compost, we took solace in knowing that the olive flesh would fertilise our parched, sandy soil, and would help the next generation of olives to blossom.

Our first olive pressing

There is no commercial olive press on the island of Kea, and people spend several days gathering their olives in order to pack them in sacks and take them to an olive press on the mainland. But this process did not work for us. We were not interested so much in quantity but in quality; by the time the sacks travel by truck and boat to reach the olive press, half of the fruit would be moldy, to say the least.

It is no wonder that nobody from Kea has managed to produce a decent olive oil, let alone a flavourful, fruity one. For some years, we tried in vain to persuade the locals to organise some kind of cooperative and buy a small communal press. And up until this brand new type of compact little press was made available, it wasn’t viable for us to buy even the smallest of the professional presses. Then an Italian manufacturer of viniculture equipment came up with the boutique-type idea; he designed and manufactured a small, yet powerful enough compact machine, for people like us, who had small olive groves and aspired to produce entirely homemade olive oil.

It is difficult to describe the sheer excitement we felt the moment the first trickle of golden-green olive oil emerged from the humming machine’s spout. We stood nervously for more than half an hour after feeding the funnel with about sixty pounds of freshly harvested olives. The crushing of the fruit seemed to last forever, and we were incredulously looking through the little square holes at the brownish olive slush, mashed and mixed for what seemed like an eternity.

The pulp had to ‘appear very shiny and brimming with oil’ and only then could Costas, my husband, turn the knob to transfer the ‘ripe’ paste into the next compartment that would, by centrifugal force, separate the pure, extra virgin olive oil from the dry solids – the crushed olive stones and the leftover skins. That was the theory, and it had worked perfectly the first time the technician demonstrated the machine’s capabilities.

He came to Kea with our brand new olive press to make sure that we learned how to operate it properly. The next day we proceeded by ourselves, without knowledgeable assistance, and we waited so long for these first drops of liquid gold that we forgot to prepare slices of toasted bread for immediate tasting, as is the custom. We did that later, when the first excitement subsided. But our press had arrived to Kea late, in the beginning of December, when many olives had fallen from our trees, and the ones we managed to harvest and press were mostly over-ripe.

As a result the oil we produced is slightly peppery and fruity, good for everyday use, but hardly exceptional. Next fall, when we will be able to press our olives at the perfect time – hopefully with the help of some of our Kea Artisanal guests – we may be able to make an extra virgin olive oil with unique character, we hope.

Award-winning cookbook author Aglaia Kremezi runs cooking classes from her home in Kea. Find out more about her cooking classes and cookbooks at www.keartisanal.com and www.aglaiakremezi.com