EDIT: In my question below, I asked about the existence of an apparent dichotomy that I've noticed in the taste of extra virgin olive oils; anticipating that my experience of this dichotomy might perhaps be due to my obtaining olive oil from UK supermarkets, I included mention of this and indicated in the question (and in the question title) that if the dichotomy does not exist as a general phenomenon then I am particularly interested in the case of oils typically sold in UK supermarkets.
However, I did not draw much attention to this point - which is good, because it has led to two responses informing me of what I did not know before, namely that dichotomy does not exist as a general phenomenon.
Nevertheless, this new information obviously does not automatically invalidate the phenomenon which I appear to have observed consistently and for which the purpose of this post is to seek an explanation: namely, that in UK supermarkets, there appears to be a sharp dichotomy between two flavour categories of olive oil.
Accordingly, I would now like to draw greater focus on this aspect of the question. Is it true that the vast majority of extra virgin olive oils sold in standard UK supermarkets can be divided into one of two categories of flavour, and if so, what is the cause of the difference? (I should emphasise that there may still be quite a large amount of variation of exact flavour within each category, but what defines the dichotomy is that the variations within each category are drastically smaller than differences in flavour between the two categories.)
In a typical supermarket in the UK, you will find a number of products labelled as
extra virgin olive oil
with the further description
superior category olive oil obtained directly from olives and solely by mechanical means.
Within one supermarket, these products will often vary greatly in price across a continuous price-spectrum. And yet my consistent experience is that, in terms of the taste, these products divide into two sharply distinct categories; there may be subtle flavour differences within each of the two categories, but across the two categories they simply taste like two different kinds of oil. And yet, I find nothing on the packaging that enables me to tell which of the two categories the product will be (apart from indirect evidences such as the Great Taste Award).
- The first category -- which tends to be more expensive than the other, although the price-ranges of the two categories can have some overlap -- has a comparatively gentle "grassy" flavour, sometimes a little bit spicy [I guess this is what the adjective "peppery" means in the context of olive oil?], and sometimes a little bit bitter.
- The second category has a much, much more "extroverted" flavour; it has an aspect of its flavour that, to my mind, tastes kind-of like a fusion of broccoli, mud and aluminium. This second category seems to be the much more commonly-found type of olive oil in restaurants, presumably because it is obtainable at a much cheaper price.
I even once remember reading an Amazon review of a fairly expensive olive oil of the first category [I can say that it is of the first category because I have tried it], where the reviewer was quite angry at having paid such a large amount of money for a product that "doesn't taste like olive oil", presumably because the reviewer (like myself until about 7 years ago) had only ever encountered olive oil of the second category!
Incidentally, I have encountered both Organic and non-Organic oils of the second category; I do not remember seeing Organic oil of the first category, but I certainly expect that it exists.
My question:
Am I right that there are these two sharply distinct kinds of "extra virgin olive oil" (at least in terms of what is typically sold in the UK)? And if so, where does this difference come from? (E.g. is it two different species of olive being used, or two different methods of oil-extraction, or a difference in post-extraction processing of the oil?)
Please note: This is not a question generically asking what the various factors are that can affect how olive oil tastes. I am asking specifically about what is responsible for the sharp dichotomy described above.
