California Made: Cloud 9 Orchard

A few months back, I had an educational day with Cloud 9 Orchard, an award-winning, family run olive farm in Monterey County. Cloud 9 Orchard hand picks their olives and creates their oils in small batches, which results in a fresh and exquisite olive oil. Their oils have a perky, pure, straight from the olive flavor that is truly exceptional.

May, the owner of the company, and I, had a wonderful highlighting her products in vibrant summer dishes, while chatting about all things olive oil!

Here are some great tips I picked up from May:

-Do not purchase anything that is not extra virgin! Extra virgin olive is the highest quality of olive oil and is the most nutritious.

-The smoke point of olive oil is 410, you can saute in it and still  maintain its nutrients.

-You can tell when your olive oil has gone rancid when the oil attacks your tongue, it starts to feel very tannic. Always check the harvest date on each bottle you purchase!


Thank you, May, for allowing me to get to know your company, and participating in my "California Made" blog series!

Olive oil tasting.

 I enjoyed all her oils. The french blend, a gold medal winner, used picholine, cailletier, lucques, olives and had a spicy, peppery flavor. The Italian blend was sweeter, olivey, with a medium short bite. It won best of class and a gold medal.

And her butiallan oil was amazingly fresh, floral, and clean.

Citrus olive oil cake. Ah-may-zing! The citrus and freshness of the olive oil worked

beautifully together.

Gazpacho in the making!

We finished the gazpacho with various olive oils, but found that the French blend brought out the

sweetness from the peppers. Refreshing and flavorful!

Fresh Bruschetta, was a great way to highlight her oils. The Italian blend was used,

which brought out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes.