His warehouse is an unassuming building that looks more like a traditional Greek Cottage, its white walls and round traditional tiles look a little out of place next to the other waterfront properties.

Babis comes from a long line of Olive Oil producers here in the Island of Paxos. “Our olives are the best in Greece and this is not an empty boast,” he says. “We in Paxos never spray our trees with preservatives,” he informs us with obvious pride. “Everywhere else in Greece… they do this be we do not.”

Inside his warehouse barrels surround the inner walls, with smaller labelled containers stored on top, in one corner of his office receipt books are piled high that have not moved in ages, judging by the dust. This warehouse is defiantly a no frills storage facility for locally made Olive Oil production.

There are approximately 250,000 Olive trees on the Island, most of his olives comes from his farms but he does take olives from other farmers on the Island.

Talking to Babis was quite an eye opening experience. His method of extracting the Olive Oil has remained unchanged for 5000 years. He uses a pair of grinding stones rolling on a flatbed stone to turn the Olives into a paste. The stones ensure the Olives are well ground and aids in the aroma that the enzymes in the oil produces. This traditional method is more labour intensive ‘he says’ but the quality of the oil is much better. This grinding process takes about 30 40 mins for each batch of Olives.

After grinding, the Olive paste is spread out onto round discs, (He now uses metal disks as aposed to fibre discs as its a cleaner process) which are stacked on top of each other, then placed under a press. It’s this first press of the first batch of ripe Olives that he sells on the quayside in Gaios. Apparently this first press does not produce the kind of quantity he needs for his buyer in Athens so he sells this in smaller containers direct to his visitors.

The remaining olive oil is then produced in bulk for shipment to Athens. “I’m happy with this arrangement,” he says. “I’m not interested in exporting directly, my customers come to me.” We’re told with a satisfying grin.

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