Typically harvested in the late summer, freshly picked olives have a bitter taste at first. Traditionally, olives are cured in a brine, or a solution of salt and water, to remove their bitterness. Once the olives are cured, you can eat them as a snack or use them as an ingredient in a dish!Click to see full answer. Consequently, can you eat olives straight from the tree?Olives, like many other kinds of produce such as potatoes and sour cherries, just aren’t something that you eat raw. Unprocessed, straight off the tree, they are bitter, very bitter, and the green ones even more so than ones which have fully ripened to black.Also Know, are all olives edible? While olives are edible straight from the tree, they are intensely bitter. Olives contain oleuropein and phenolic compounds, which must be removed or, at least, reduced to make the olive palatable. Furthermore, how do you harvest olives to eat? Green olives have a longer shelf life but tend to be bitter and will take several months to mellow in flavor. If picking olives for oil, pick olives with a light yellow color. First, place tarps under the tree or trees. Using a rake, gently dislodge the olives.What do you do with olives after you pick them?Olives picked off the tree contain a very bitter compound called oleuropein. Harvested olives must be “cured” to remove the bitterness in order to make them palatable. The most common curing processes use brine, dry salt, water, or lye treatments.
