Product knowledge
Why Is Some Olive Oil Green and Some Golden?
Colour in olive oil comes down almost entirely to harvest timing, not quality. Oil pressed from olives picked early, while still green and under-ripe, carries more chlorophyll and comes out vividly green; oil pressed later in the season, once the fruit has ripened and picked up more carotenoid pigments, runs more golden-yellow. Both can be excellent extra virgin oil — colour tells you about the harvest, not the grade.
That's also why professional tasters deliberately remove colour from the judging process, using coloured glasses so a golden oil isn't marked down next to a green one, or vice versa, purely on looks.
Early vs. late harvest: where the pigments come from
Olives start green and darken to purple-black as they ripen over the harvest season, and the oil pressed from them tracks that same shift. Early-harvest, greener fruit is higher in chlorophyll, which carries straight through into the pressed oil and gives it that vivid green tint; oil from later, riper fruit has less chlorophyll and relatively more carotenoids — the same pigment family behind carrots and autumn leaves — which shows up as gold or pale yellow. Growers who pick early are usually chasing a more robust, peppery, grassy-tasting oil; a later harvest tends to give a milder, softer oil, with colour simply along for the ride.
Why colour isn't a quality grade
None of the recognised grading systems for olive oil — extra virgin, virgin, refined and so on — reference colour at all; grade is set by free-fatty-acid levels and sensory panel scores, covered in full in what olive oil grade names actually mean. A bright green oil and a pale gold oil from the same producer, same harvest, can both be genuine extra virgin — the colour just reflects when in the season the fruit was picked, not how well it was pressed or how fresh it is.
Why professional tasters use blue or black glasses
Official sensory panels taste olive oil from small, dark blue or black glasses specifically so colour can't influence the score — a taster judging blind on aroma and flavour alone is less likely to unconsciously rate a green oil as "fresher" or a golden oil as "milder" just because of how it looks in a clear glass. It's a deliberate control against a very human bias: colour is genuinely one of the least reliable things to judge an oil by, worth remembering the next time two bottles on a shelf look nothing alike.
What this means when you're buying
For a buyer, the practical takeaway is to judge oil the way the panels do — on harvest date, aroma and taste, not the tint in the bottle. Our how to judge a good extra virgin olive oil guide covers those checks in full; Lio Premium Virgin Olive Oil is pressed and bottled to the same quality standard regardless of which end of the harvest window gives it its particular shade that season.
Related questions
Does green olive oil taste different from golden olive oil?
Often, yes, but because of harvest timing rather than colour itself — earlier-picked, greener-tinted oil tends to taste more peppery and grassy, while later-harvest, golden oil is usually milder. The colour is a side effect of the same ripeness that shapes the flavour.
Is green olive oil better quality than golden olive oil?
No. Colour has no bearing on grade — extra virgin oil can be either green or golden depending on when the olives were picked. Judge quality by harvest date, aroma and taste, not the colour in the bottle.
Why do professional tasters use coloured glasses to taste olive oil?
To remove colour as a variable. Dark blue or black glasses stop a taster's eye from influencing their judgment of aroma and flavour, so the score reflects what the oil actually tastes like rather than how it looks.