Best Tasting Olive Oil Beginnings

During a 2005 visit to Israel, a friendship was formed between a Texan and an Israeli. Peter is from the large Texas capital city of Austin while Samer is from a small village in Northern Israel near the City of Nazareth. Peter and Samer became quick friends while working on a project for a leading high tech company with a manufacturing site in Israel. While away from this project for a few days, Samer invited Peter up to Nazareth to meet his friends and family and also to experience the hospitality of his community. Peter graciously accepted the invitation and was anxious to experience the town and area that has so much Biblical historical importance. During this visit Peter recognized how a major part of this community is based on the growth of Olive trees and processing the olives into oil. Samer took Peter on a tour of one of the oil processing facilities and was impressed to see that the same technique that was developed thousands of years ago is still used today to take the raw olive and process it into beautifully tasting olive oil.

Peter soon learned that the region's olive trees are pesticide-free, irrigated only with rainwater, and that the olives are handpicked and washed with water only. These farmers have been growing their olive trees organically long before western markets started coming around to the organic way of agriculture. The pressing machine is the same design that has been used for generations. It is a large granite stone circulating around a large bin pressing the olives into a paste which is then pressed further into the high quality oil. The finished product is nothing short of perfection. You can taste the purity and quality of oil that has not been tampered with from seed to tree to finished product. The output at the final step is beautiful golden oil that tastes magnificent.

Peter took a liter home to Texas to use with his cooking and with his salads and meals, but this oil didn't last long. So during a visit to his local grocery store, Peter checked to see if he could find any Israel olive oil. It turns out that none was available. So Peter called his friend Samer and asked him to ship more oil to him for his continued personal use. After more research and finding that the local markets had no selection of olive oil from Israel and very little from the Middle East, Peter and Samer discussed the possibility of forming a small business. They realized that they had an opportunity to match the high quality and traditional product of olive oil from a simple farming community across the globe with a market in Central Texas and other markets in the United States. Samer and Peter reached an agreement and soon the partnership increased to a total of five individuals who are committed to providing a high-quality, organic olive oil to our customers.

Please try a bottle of Nazareth Olive Oil and you too will understand the tradition and care that goes into this high quality product.