Hand harvesting is not easy and its mechanics haven’t changed much since Theophrastus’ time. Tarps are laid underneath the trees. A few branches from each of the trees are sawn off; this pruning is to ensure the health of the tree for future production. Olives from these branches are added to the pile. Then the remaining branches are beaten with a broom, sometimes mechanized. The branches, thus agitated, release the fruit.

Some farmers, it must be said, toss some tarps under their trees and wait for Mother Nature and gravity to do the work. Needless to say, this isn’t the best,
or (luckily) the most typical, method.

Perhaps because olive harvesting is a labor-intensive and time consuming task, most olive groves are still small, family-owned concerns. This also affects quality. These trees are these farmers livelihood.
If they don’t treat the trees well, next year’s harvest may suffer. And if they don’t treat the fruit of these trees well, this fruit will be worth far less at market.

In some areas, grove owners band together into cooperatives, many of which enforce quality controls. These individual landowners and cooperatives may cure some, all or none of their own olives. Excess or total yield may be handed over to another entity for curing and packaging. The best of these entities develop strong relationships with their olive suppliers. They care about quality, from the raw good to the finished form.

The Cure
With one exception (Thassos Olives), olives are inedible when picked from the tree. This is due to the glucoside in their flesh. This substance makes them bitter indeed. To remove this glucodise and render the olive edible, the fruit must be cured.
Olives may be cured in several ways: Lye-cured, salt-cured, brine-cured, fresh water-cured or olive oil-cured.

Lye-curing is the fastest, most efficient curing method. It is also the worst one in terms of taste. Lye-curing leeches much of the olive’s flavor and can leave a residual chemical taste on the palate. Natural curing, represented by the other four methods, is far more desirable.

In salt-curing (also known as dry-curing), the olives are packed in plain salt for at least a month. This, as you might imagine, produces a pretty salty (and wrinkled) olive. Brine-curing involves placing the olives in a salt and water solution (e.g. brine) for a few days or more. Fresh water-curing is achieved by rinsing the olives and soaking them in a succession of baths; the water is changed each day. Oil-cured olives, the rarest, are placed in tubs of olive oil and allowed to cure for several months.

Cured this way they offer a sweet, mild taste.Once cured, the olives may be left with their pits intact or unpitted. Unpitted olives may also be stuffed; with capers,
with almonds, with pimentos – you name it.

Olives for Everyone
Here, then, is a guide to some – but by no means all – of the more interesting table olives one can find in Greece. It should be noted that there can be several different spellings for many of the olive’s names. We chose what we believe to be the most common spellings.

Conservolea
Conservolea olives may be the most versatile table olive grown in Greece. Known both by its cultivar name (Conservolea) as well as by any number of regional names, it is the country’s most commercially important variety.
Unripe, Conservolea is deep green. As it matures it can turn any number of colors, from green-red and green-yellow to dark brown and nearly black. They are processed in both green and black form.
Several versions of this olive have been accorded Protected Designation of Origin Status. These are:
•  Conservolea Amfissis
•  Conservolea Artas
•  Conservolea Atalantis
•  Conservolea Piliou Volou
•  Conservolea Rovion
•  Conservolea Stilidas

Kalamata.
Named after a south-western region in the Peloponnese, Kalamatas are Greece’s most renowned olives. Rich and fruity, these eggplant-colored drupes are processed only as a black olive. They are usually slit and preserved in vinegar and/or olive oil. Kalamatas also enjoy PDO status.

Halkidiki
These olives come from the Halkidiki region in northern Greece, close to male-only monastery area called Mount Athos. A larger-than-average olive, they are also known as "gaidouria" (donkey olives) in much the same Americans can call large pills "horsepills". Elongated with a prominent tip, these may be used for green olives – uncracked, cracked, pitted or stuffed – or for black olives.

Hondroelia
One of the rarest of Greek olives, Hondroelias come from Astros in Arcadia. Absolutely enormous (nearly two inches long), this is a blond olive that is traditionally cured in salt, sometimes for a full year. Meaty, mild and slightly bitter, Greeks call them "Olives for Heros." Literally translated, the word ‘hondroelias’ means ‘fat olives’.

Thassos
These are the only olives you may eat straight from the tree (and may be what gave our ancestors the idea that olives could be edible). Harvested when fully black and wrinkled, they are dry-cured then packed in olive oil. From the island of – surprise – Thassos in the northern Aegean Sea, these olives of the Thrubolea cultivar are meaty with a strong, rich flavor. Stafidolies olives are their cousins.

Megaritiki
Cultivated in the Attica region (where Athens is located), these may be black, dry-salted olives or green cracked olives. The green version can be known as Tsakistes, which are generally marinated
in herbs and brine.

Nafplion
Nafplion olives are grown in the eastern Peloponnese. Always a (slightly salty) green olive, they are picked in September when young and unripened and then cured in brine. A smaller-sized olive with a big nutty taste.

Atalanti
From the town of Atalanti in Eastern Greece, this medium to large green olive is pale and round with a complex, zesty flavor. A member of the Conservolea family, these olives have PDO status as noted above.

Ionian
From the Ionian Islands comes this bright green olive. Large and crunchy, they are cured in very light brine, giving them a
mild flavor.

Elitses
Mostly grown for its oil, this olive is really small, so while there is more pit than flesh, what flesh there is sweet and fruity. These olives originated in Crete and can still be found there; locals tend to eat them by the handful, spitting out the tiny pits a la watermelon seeds. Unfortunately, they are pretty hard to find anywhere else.

Volos
A style of prepared black olives made from the Conservolia cultivar. Large and oval, these olives are most often salt-cured, but may be cured in olive oil.