château carman is a 45 donum mainly citrus and olive grove on the foothills of the agla mountains, we have in the region of 2500 trees producing on average 5 tons of olives, 60 tons of lemons, we have now grafted 800 of the mandarin trees into lemon trees, so in 3 to 4 years time we should be producing in the region of 100 tons of lemons
we also produce smaller quantities of pomegranates, apricots, oranges, seville oranges, avocado, cherry, walnuts, almonds, plums, figs, mulberries and much more
we normally make some of these into preserves etc as well as being eaten by family and friends
in October / November we prepare the domat olives, as well as the memecik olives and the kalamat olives that are grown at Château Carman we then vacuum pack them and transport to the UK, some of these olives are picked when green and prepared in brine and lemon juice, we also pick them when they turn black and prepare them in dry salt.
at chateau carman i produce 3 different varieties of olives to organic standards
the memecik, this is the smallest of my olives but really flavorsome, we pick these when black in november / december and cure in dry salt
the domat grows to the size of a small walnut, we pick these when green in october and slash them by hand, these are then put in fresh water for a number of weeks, after which they are cured in brine and citric acid, they are ideal for marianating yourself at home
the chakistes this is the green domat olive marinated in garlic, corriander seeds and pieces of lemon
salama this is the domat olive but picked when black in november december and then dry cured in salt
the kalamat this is a huge olive picked when green in october we hand slash these olives and prepare them in the same manner as the green domat olives, thay have a crispy nutty flavor about them
we have now started to produce pommegranate mollasses, sweet paprika flakes, hot chilli flakes, we also prepared our first batch of preserved lemons which was extremely successfull, my plans are to produce in the region of 500 kilos per annum, in 2009 we will start to produce walnut preserve, quince preserve, bergamot preserve, and much more and only using our own produce
just to give you an idea as to what is involved in producing pommegranate molasses
it takes the juice of 12 liters of the sour pommegranate to boil down adding salt and citric acid to make one liter of mollasses this is what i will be bringing over this is not the commercially produced item with 90% glucose, colouring and additives but 100% pure mollasses so expect the price to be high, also known as black lemon juice
our chilli and sweet paprika flakes are also grown on the farm and dried in the sun, they are then taken to the local mill and turned to flakes after which we put the flakes out under the sun adding olive oil and salt, they remain under the sun for 3 to 5 days turning from a brick color to a dark red, at this point we pack and send to the uk
