The harvest of Butko olives, which are awarded with superior taste and grown in Yusufeli district of Artvin, has started. Olives are collected one by one from the branches of trees that are meters high and take their place on the tables. Butko Olive, produced in Yusufeli district, received the superior taste award at the International Olive Oil Fair held in China in 2006. The local people attribute the quality of olives to irrigation water and the fact that they are picked individually from the branch. The height of olive trees varies between 8-12 meters and producers collect olives with the help of ladders. The harvest process starts in November and continues until the end of December. The quality and taste of the olives in the region are in great demand by the local people.
The harvest of Butko olives, which are awarded with superior taste and grown in Yusufeli district of Artvin, has started. With the help of ladders, olives are collected one by one from the branches of trees that are meters high and take their place on the tables.
Butko Olive, produced in Demirkent village of Artvin’s Yusufeli district, was deemed worthy of the superior taste award at the International Olive Oil Fair held in Beijing, the capital of China, in 2006. The people of the region attribute the high quality of Butko Olives, which are in demand from all over Turkey, to the fact that they are collected from irrigation water and branches one by one.
Olive trees reach 8-12 meters in height
In the region with a microclimate on the Çoruh Valley, there are approximately 22 thousand olive trees in an area of 800 decares. While the height of olive trees varies between 8 and 12 meters, unlike the dwarf olive trees in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions, producers climb to the top of the meters-high trees with the help of ladders and collect the olives one by one from the branches.
Retired Teacher Varol Tosun stated that he produces olives in his own garden and that the olive harvest started in November and continued until the end of December. Stating that the yield this year is low but good in terms of quality, Tosun said, “There are table olives, butko and sat olives in our region. The butko olive is more delicious on the table because its skin is thin, while the other sat olive is a type of olive that can last for a long time. Even though the people of the region are engaged in animal husbandry, olives come first. “It became a source of income for us,” he said.
“Our Butko olives are not poured or shaken; we pick them one by one from the branch.”
Menemşe Alışkan, who started olive harvesting, said, “I am a villager by birth and bred. We wake up early in the morning and come here to collect olives. Our olives are picked one by one from the branch. In the evening, we pick them one by one, the green ones separately, the black ones separately for brine and oil.”
Another producer, Şentürk Karataş, said, “We have started the olive harvest. Our olives are the world’s first. The reason for this is that our olives are not poured or shaken. We collect them one by one from the branch. We set up the ladder. We collect the olives on the branches of trees at a height of 8-10 meters with our hands.”