Since people discovered how to extract the valuable olive oil from the small bitter fruit of the ancient olive trees.
It is unlikely that the early harvesters of the olive were privy to this much information, but the humble olive tree can certainly claim to be one of the main pillars of the renowned 'healthy Mediterranean diet'.
Olive trees of all ages are abundant all over Ibiza and many are reputed to be over 1,000 years old. However, they are not a crop that offers a quick return and were traditionally planted to provide for the next generation. Their most productive years are considered to be between 25 and 100 years during which time they can produce between 30 and 50 kilos of olives each year.
Traditionally the olives that had dropped during the night were collected each autumn morning when the peasants took their sheep or goats to pasture. If it was a windy day they would take a second tour of their trees expecting more fruit to have fallen.
Nowadays, as the flocks of sheep have largely disappeared, you are more likely to see the farmers beating the trees with long sticks and catching the olives with nets spread on the ground beneath. Since each family would have only a few trees, they would then take their precious fruit to a neighbouring finca that possessed an olive press.
There are two main components to an olive press; the first is the horse drawn millstone with its huge stone trough into which the olives are tipped and crushed into a pulp by the millstone, as it is interminably dragged around by the blinkered horse. The resultant pulp is then crammed into big wicker baskets a metre across, which are piled under the business end of the press.
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