COLD PRESSED ALMOND OIL

No. It is cold pressed and filtered only - no bleaching, no deodorising and no solvent extraction. That is why it keeps its natural colour and aroma.

Around four to six months, kept capped, cool and out of sunlight. There is no synthetic antioxidant in it, so it is meant to be used rather than stored.

No. It is fine solids that pass through a cloth filter. Refined oils look perfectly clear because they are filtered through bleaching clay. Shake before use or pour off the clear oil.

Use it for light and medium-heat cooking. Unrefined oils have lower smoke points than refined ones, and heating past smoking damages both the oil and the flavour.

Our presses run at the counter and you are welcome to watch. Ask in store which oils are being pressed that day.

Because there is no anti-foaming agent in it. Refined oils have silicone-based additives that stop this; unrefined oil does not, so it froths, particularly in humid weather. It is a sign of what is absent. If it bothers you, drop a small ball of tamarind into the hot oil for a minute and the foam settles.

No hydrogenation is used, so there is no industrially produced trans fat, and no plant oil contains cholesterol. Those two things are true of any genuinely unrefined, mechanically pressed oil, ours included.

It is filtered through cloth only, never through bleaching clay. That leaves fine particles of the seed or kernel behind, so the oil can look cloudy and drop a little sediment. Perfectly clear oil has usually been through a refining step.

It is pressed in small batches in the shop rather than refined in a plant and shipped in drums. Nothing is bleached, deodorised or blended in, and there is no synthetic antioxidant to stretch the shelf life - so it is fresher, it smells of what it came from, and it is meant to be used rather than stored.