Greek olive trees on Mykonos are lovely sight, beautiful trees that dot a dry rocky landscape. At Villa Hurmuses, we are proud to have our own olive trees and love to offer our guests this traditional Greek taste right from our backyard.
The Greek Love of Olives
There are dozens of types of olive trees, more than one hundred, that are cultivated throughout the country. Generally, the climate here in Greece consists of a long hot summers and mild winters with low frost. That is why since ancient times, the olive tree has survived. Not only has it survived, it is one of the prime foods in Greek gastronomy and has always been used in health, beauty and medicine. We Greeks adore the usefulness, healthful properties and delicious taste of both olives and olive oil. Olive trees are engrained in our culture.
When did the olive tree first appear in Greece? Historic research about the Aegean Sea reveals that fossil olive leaves were actually uncovered in the volcanic rocks of Nisyros and another neighboring Cycladic island that you may have heard of called Santorini. These olive leaf fossils date back an astounding 60,000 years.
Today, Mykonos really isn’t known for its fertile lands. None of the Cycladic islands are very fertile except for neighboring Naxos (that’s another story). However, we are proud that our island landscape successfully grows some delicious staples from wine, tomatoes, eggplants and well, olive trees!
Olive Trees at Villa Hurmuses
Our villa family cultivates our olive trees right on site. We have a grove of them that you can walk through. The olive trees at Villa Hurmuses are harvested in the fall, in November.
We pick the olives and preserve them that way, until next harvest, we have an ample supply to be served and used in our home cooked dishes. To supplement our needs, we also support a local olive oil farm in the Peloponnese, purchasing their delicious olive oil. For more on that check out our earlier blog post: Quality Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Our black olives are ripe olives, picked at full maturity. They have a distinct shape and a distinct tang. Besides producing our very own olive oil, our olives are perfect when cooked in hot or slow-cooked dishes or tossed into the traditional Greek salad.
We’re looking forward to this year’s harvest of delicious Greek olives from our olive trees on Mykonos.
Have you ever tried Greek olives or Greek olive oil?