How to taste olive oil: the four S's

Most people have never actually tasted olive oil. They have poured it, cooked with it, dipped bread in it — but never sat down and paid attention to it the way you would a wine. Ten minutes from now, you will know how. And I promise you will never look at a salad the same way again.

Professionals use four steps. Swirl, sniff, sip, savor. Here is exactly how each one works, and what you are looking for.

1. Swirl — warm it, and hide the colour

The most glamorous tool in our world is a small cobalt blue glass. It is not decoration. It is engineered to hide the oil's colour entirely, because colour tells you nothing about flavour or quality — and left to ourselves, we all judge with our eyes. Green looks fresh, gold looks tired, and both assumptions are wrong. The blue glass makes you blissfully unbiased.

No blue glass? Improvise. A wine glass works beautifully: pour in a tablespoon or so, cup one hand over the top, and cradle the bowl in the other to warm it. The warmth lifts the aromatics; the cupped hand traps them. Even a spoon will do — just move quickly and sniff while the aromas are still rising.

Colour means nothing. Warmth and containment are everything.

2. Sniff — let your nose do the talking

Uncover the glass, put your nose right in, and inhale — long, slow, unhurried. Then do it again. The first breath tells you whether the oil is alive; the second starts giving you detail.

You are hunting for green, fresh, living smells. Here is the vocabulary tasters use — borrow it freely:

• 🫒Green and vegetal — grass, tomato leaf, artichoke, arugula
• 🫒Fruit — green apple, unripe banana, citrus peel
• 🫒Nuts — almond, walnut, pine
• 🫒Herbs and flowers — sage, mint, basil, rose, chamomile
• 🫒Earthy — mushroom, hay, fresh-cut wood, soil after rain
• 🫒And that unmistakable black pepper

Every oil has its own aromatic personality — an early-harvest Picual bellows where a delicate Arbequina murmurs. There is no wrong answer. If it smells of something, and that something is fresh, you are already in good territory.

3. Sip — and pull a very silly face

Take a small sip — about a teaspoon — and hold it in the front of your mouth. Now make a not-quite-smile, teeth slightly apart, and suck air in over the oil. It will hiss. Do it three times, letting the oil spread over your tongue, your cheeks, and back towards your throat.

You will look absolutely ridiculous. Every sommelier in the world looks ridiculous doing this. Embrace it.

The technique is called strippaggio, and it works: aerating the oil volatilises the aromatic compounds and carries them up into your nose from behind, which is where most of what we call taste actually happens. Flavours arrive in waves — green and fruity first, then a bitterness in the middle of the tongue, and finally, just as you swallow, a peppery catch at the back of the throat.

If it makes you cough, congratulations. That is oleocanthal, a natural anti-inflammatory compound, and it means the oil is rich in polyphenols. In parts of Spain they measure oils in coughs: one cough, two coughs, three. A cougher is a keeper.

4. Savor — let it linger and tell you the truth

Pause. Don't reach for water. Let the oil finish speaking, and ask yourself four questions:

• 🫒Does my mouth feel clean — not greasy, not coated, not waxy?
• 🫒Did I taste layers, rather than one flat note? Green fruit, bitter almond, artichoke, pepper?
• 🫒Was there a tickle or burn at the back of the throat?
• 🫒Do my lips feel fresh rather than filmed over?

Four yeses and you have just tasted a living extra virgin olive oil. Fresh oil says hello and goodbye — it arrives with fruit and departs with pepper, and the whole conversation lasts about thirty seconds.

And if it is past its best

Old oil, or oil blended with previous years' stock, tastes unmistakably different once you know the signs:

• 🫒Flat, fatty or greasy — it coats rather than cleanses
• 🫒Waxy, leaving a film on the lips
• 🫒Rancid — crayons, stale walnuts, old peanuts, greasy coins
• 🫒Musty, dusty or faded, like a room that has been shut up too long
• 🫒No pepper, no bitterness, no layers — nothing at the finish

Do not feel bad about it; almost every kitchen has a bottle like this. It is not unsafe, simply lifeless. Use it up on high-heat roasting where subtlety is wasted, or put it to work outside the kitchen — seasoning a cast-iron pan, polishing wooden boards, softening dry hands. Just do not waste your good bread on it.

Why this matters more than any label

Here is the uncomfortable truth: no label can tell you whether an oil is alive. A harvest date tells you how old it is, provenance tells you where it came from, and both are essential — it is why Veritat will not certify an oil without them. But only your own nose and throat can tell you whether the oil in front of you still has something to say.

So pour a little of whatever is in your cupboard right now. Swirl it, sniff it, pull the silly face. If it comes back flat, you have learned something valuable — and you know exactly what to look for next time.

Now channel your inner Ruth Reichl and taste every glorious drop. Your taste buds will thank you. Happy tasting, Julie