My family is from a small fishing village called Koroni in the center of olive country in southern Greece. Koroni is the original home of the Koroneiki olive - the most popular varietal of olives grown throughout all of Greece - so, I grew up knowing what good olive oil tasted like.

As I started my own family, I started cooking more at home. I found that the Greek “extra virgin” olive oil at the supermarket here tasted absolutely nothing like what my family produced and enjoyed in Greece. I knew I wanted to bring the good stuff to the US. As I began development, I took an olive oil sommelier course and I was blown away by the health benefits of olive oil when harvested early and milled properly. I learned about the polyphenols found in EVOO and the story of the research team that discovered them. 

I also discovered that the majority of the olive oils sold in the US are not what they say they are so I decided to focus my efforts on making an EVOO that is authentically Mediterranean, delicious to smell, taste, and cook with, and, above all, loaded with health benefits. In order to be deemed extra virgin, an olive has to have 55 mg/kg of polyphenol content. Kosterina Original EVOO always has greater than 500 mg/kg, 8-10x more than your typical olive oil.

Today, Kosterina has evolved to be so much more than olive oil. We’ve created an incredible line of organic olives, vinegars that pair perfectly with our EVOO, and even all natural skincare leveraging the power of extra virgin olive oil for deep hydration and antioxidant protection.