THE COLOR REVOLUTION
What if we reinvented the color of olive oil to open the door to a new way of enjoying it? A question that took us a year to try and answer.
When Art and Gastronomy unite
At L’Aurea, color is not decoration—it is emotion, culture, and innovation. Once we understood how much it influences our perception of taste, we could no longer ignore it. And we asked ourselves: what if olive oil could say something new before the first drop touched the plate?
How does color influence food?
It's not just about visual impact. Color also interacts with other senses like smell and even touch. The color of what we eat influences us more than we think.
If one thing is certain, it's that the expectations generated by a color directly influence our perception of taste. If it's red, we expect a fruity or sweet taste. If it's green, we expect freshness or a vegetable taste. If it's golden, we expect something crunchy.
But it's not limited to sight: color interacts with other senses, such as smell and even touch, immersing us in a sensory journey that shapes our tasting experience.
How do we change the color of the oil?
It took us a year of work with two research centers and dozens of attempts to achieve it. We weren't looking for a shortcut—we wanted a real pink olive oil, without losing any of what makes an EVOO exceptional. And it had to be 100% natural.
We tried dozens of plant-based pigments until we found the only one capable of adding color without altering anything else: beetroot concentrate, less than 5%. The flavor, the same as always. The purity, intact.
The result: the world's first pink extra virgin olive oil. And organic. Organoleptically, the same care as always, just in a color no one had ever seen before.
OUR R&D PARTNERS
A world-leading center in food innovation. Tecnalia helped us find a way to change the color without altering the oil's characteristics: its flavor, purity, and nutritional properties. Months of testing, one result: a 100% natural pink color and the original oil preserved
In close collaboration with Professor Pía López-Izquierdo, we study the potential of color to enhance the culinary experience, starting with Aurelia's pink. New variations may emerge in the future.
