Australian supermarket olives taste test: ‘I want to draw a still-life painting of these'

The Guardian

5 days ago

Imagine the best and worst olive. Take a second. Maybe close your eyes to immerse yourself in the exercise. What does the best olive look like? How about the worst? What is the texture of the best olive? How does the worst olive taste?
I ask myself questions like this before every taste test, a mental exercise to help calibrate all the scores I'm about to give. But sometimes there are surprises, things so exceptionally good, bad or different they exist beyond the imagination. Things I thought weren't possible in a supermarket product or maybe at all. This taste test was full of them.
The taste test was done blind over multiple rounds, each featuring whole olives of a different ripeness – green, purple and black. The tasters – 15 friends – tasted 22 olives (some pitted, some not), scoring each on appearance, texture and taste. I ate about 55 olives in 90 minutes.
So, that best and worst olive you imagined: you probably came close with the best. There are sadly no big surprises at that end of the supermarket. But, unless you're wildly imaginative, or you've eaten the exact same olive I have, you're probably way off the mark on imagining the worst.
Sandhurst Sicilian Whole Green Olives, 280g, $4 ($1.43 per 100g), available from major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
Usually when I eat an olive, I feel as though my mouth has just won a fight – satisfying but it's still a bit of a violent experience. These olives are more like rolling down the gentle slope of a flower meadow while wearing head-to-toe cashmere. Other reviewers said they tasted like green tea, artichokes and various white cheeses. Two related it to the Cantonese and Teochew concept of gan, or unsweet sweetness (written 甘), which you'd use to describe tea. 'I want to draw a still-life painting of these and compose a thesis on their depth of flavour,' another wrote. Oddly, the three reviewers who didn't like them all mentioned medicine, carpet or both.
Ceres Organics Kalamata Olives, 320g, $10 ($3.13 per 100g), available from Woolworths
Score: 7/10
Unlike the green olive round, there were no standout purple olives, which is why this uncontroversial 7/10 olive is one of two winners. As one reviewer wrote: 'Strong, salty but kind of straight shooting – no real funk or gasoline vibes.' That's talking about how they taste, anyway. Texturally, they were all over the place, some firm but some disconcertingly flabby, like eating a partly mushy strawberry. Drop a handful in a pasta and it won't matter much, besides the fact it cost $10 to do so.
Macro Organic Whole Kalamata Olives, 350g, $3.30 ($0.94 per 100g), available from Woolworths
Score: 7/10
There was a strong correlation between salt and nuance. While the saltiest olives were powerful and sometimes snackier, they sacrificed some character to get there. Macro's olives are a great example. They have almost half the sodium of other products, and reviewers described them as balanced, funky, vegetal and 'unapologetically olivey'. Some thought that was a 9/10 feature, others a 5/10. They're also a beautiful dark shade of purple, like Grimace emerging from a pool in a racy teen romcom, the moonlight glistening on his hair.
Deli Originals' Whole Kalamata Olives, 350g, $2.49 ($0.71 per 100g), available at Aldi
Score: 6.5/10
Salty, sour and uncomplicated. A classic mid-range kalamata but a bit uglier. What you want to cook with, not serve on a platter for guests worried about your financial security. One reviewer wrote: 'Doesn't have a strong sense of self.' While true, I'm happy for its purpose to be a soldier in the grocery coalition that's fighting for my hope of one day owning a home.
Muraca Whole Italian Large Olives, 580g, $8.95 ($1.54 per 100g), available at select grocers
Score: 7/10
I recently had a dream where I was an alien living on Earth, masquerading as a human, and the only way I could ever hang out with my friends was at dress-up parties. These olives are always at the dress-up party. While they look like olives, they're unusually enormous, they've got a juicy, meaty texture and a nutty, grassy flavour that I haven't tasted in any other olive. In my dream, it didn't really matter whether I was human or another organism – I found enough people to like me. Same with these olives. As one reviewer said: 'Sticking out into its own territory but I'll follow it there.'
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Always Fresh Olives Pitted Sicilian, 230g, $4 ($1.74 per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 6.5/10
Always Fresh sells two kinds of green olives: these weirdly green ones (more like a moss green than any olive you'd find on a tree) and another less green variety that's way bigger and more expensive. Although we gave the huge ones a better score (7/10), I think there's use for both. The bigger ones are for maximalists and hedonists. They're sour, salty and, thanks to the novelty size, fun. The smaller ones are fruity, nuanced and delicate – they have no vinegar and less salt than any other olive we tried. These are for people who prefer baroque covers of pop songs over the real thing.
Penfield Olives Australian Pitted Green Olives, 250g, $4.49 ($1.80 per 100g), available at select grocers
Score: 6/10
On texture, these were the highest-scoring olives of the day. Many reviewers described them as meaty, firm and almost crunchy. But it's hard to give a nuanced description of their taste due to the 4,750mg of salt in the jar (that's a whopping 1,900mg per 100g). Their kalamatas are similar but a bit fattier. Are they good olives or bad olives? I don't know, depends on your salt tolerance. I'd be careful cooking with them, but if you like your martinis in leather pants with the crotch cut out, this is worth a try.
Wicked Pitted Kalamata Olives, 450g, $4 ($0.89 per 100g), available at Coles
Score: 6/10
Listening to the other reviewers progressively eat and describe this was akin to reading internet commentary about child rearing: how are there so many radically different opinions about this? One said they tasted like cherry pie filling, another like petrochemicals. I thought they were quite wine-like in flavour, while others said anchovies and menthol. The only similarity is the intensity of all those flavours, which makes sense as they were also the most sodium-dense product of the day (1,990mg per 100g). My favourite comment was: 'Straddling the line between exciting and disturbing.' Like meeting your clone – you won't know if you like it or not until you experience it.
Mount Zero Organic Kalamata Olives, 300g, $9.70 ($3.23 per 100g), available at select grocers
Score: 5/10
The first thing I wrote on my scorecard was: 'What is this?' I knew it was an olive, a kalamata specifically, but I had no idea how an olive could be bitter and sweet in the way wine is (sort of hinting at sweetness but no actual sugar content) while also kind of nutty and oily. One reviewer said it 'tastes like a failed fine dining dessert', which I thought was apt, because like all great art, fine dining should be divisive. I think many people will love them, but few will feel neutral.
Always Fresh Black Olives Pitted, 220g, $3.50 ($1.59 per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 5/10
Each score is an average of all the reviewers' scores, but a 5/10 average could be made up of 6/10 and 4/10 scores, or by 1/10 and 10/10 scores, and those are very different things. This was the latter. 'Notes of petrol', 'taste like soggy bread' and 'battery acid', said the dissenters. 'Weirdly ersatz floral', 'pleasant fruitiness' and 'nostalgic blandness, giving Pizza Hut vibes but with a hint of creaminess', said their opposition. I thought it was faintly floral and buttery, like tasting an olive through a cloth. Somehow, I still gave them a 7/10 – but maybe even the most minimal, weird Philip Glass song feels special after listening to 21 tracks of hardcore EDM.
Monini L'Oliva Leccino Pitted, 150g, $4.90 ($3.27 per 100g), available at Coles
Score: 3/10
I have eaten many terrible things in my life and both Monini's green and black olives are right up there with the worst. Like primary school orchestra dissonance, early AI videos and my grandparents' cooking, they're bad in a creative way, so much so I would have no idea how to recreate the experience. Had I not been in an olive taste test, I could have easily guessed them to be a non-olive entity. One reviewer wrote: 'Conduct a study into the psychology of people who knowingly buy this. Or perhaps give them a Covid test.' Which is exactly what I'd like to do to the two people who gave them a positive score.
Green Valley Pitted Kalamata 6.5/10
Coles Whole Green Olives 6.5/10
Always Fresh Pitted Giant Green 7/10
Always Fresh Organic Kalamata Olives Pitted 6/10
Sandhurst Pitted Kalamata Olives 6/10
Penfield Olives Pitted Kalamata Olives 5.5/10
Woolworths Pitted Whole Kalamata Olives 5.5/10
Ceres Organics Green Olives Pitted 5/10
Coles Pitted Kalamata Olives 4.5/10
Monini L'Oliva Bella Di Cerignola Pitted 3.5/10