As a gourmet, you may have tried Kobe Wagyu Beef which is the most prestigious beef in the world. But I bet you haven’t tried Olive Wagyu before. Since it is very, very, very rare and it is probably the rarest beef on the planet. Olive Wagyu Beef is so special that the people who have enjoyed it are super lucky. Let’s check out what it is and what is so special!
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Rarest Beef in the World
Olive Wagyu is a Japanese Wagyu brand just like Kobe beef, Matsusaka Beef or Omi Beef. It is delightfully tender, juicy and intensely marbled which leads to a melt in the mouth texture like butter.
This is one of the rarest beef all over the world with only 2200 Olive Wagyu cattle on the planet. The monthly production is very little and it is nearly impossible to buy, even in Japan.
Where Does Olive Wagyu Come From?
All Olive Wagyu cattle grow in a small place in Japan: Shodoshima Island, Kagawa Prefecture. Here, the local farmers combined two specialties—olives and cattle and then produced the marvelous Olive Wagyu.
Cattle raising is an old business in Kagawa Prefecture which started in the year 700, but the cattle were only for agriculture. Until Emperor Meiji lifted the meat-eating ban in 1872, the farmers began to raise cattle for meat. It has an exquisite marbling just like the other Wagyu, yet it is not as popular as other Wagyu due to its remote location.
Shodoshima Island is also known as “Olive Island” where the climate is Mediterranean-alike. The origin of this nickname comes from an experiment in 1908. In that year, the Japanese government tried to introduce olives to Japan, which is commonly found in the Mediterranean Basin. They sent the olive tree seedlings to Mie, Kagoshima and Kagawa, and the farmers carried out an experiment of cultivating this foreign fruit.
In the end, olives only thrived in Shodoshima Island of Kagawa Prefecture. Hence, it became the birthplace of olive cultivation in Japan. The olive oil industry rose rapidly which created tons of leftover olive mash that the farmers discard as waste.
Birth of A Whole New Beef
In the past, the olive farmers in Shodoshima Island may have been happy thanks to the flourishing of the olive industry. But the cattle breeders were struggling.
But everything changed at the moment a cattle breeder tried feeding his cows olives. In 2006, a smart cattle farmer called Masaki Ishii tested many methods to try to lift the quality of cows by using the leftover olive pulp from olive oil production.
He first fed a cow with raw olive pulp and guess what? Extremely bitter! After that, he borrowed the traditional Seto Inland Sea method of drying persimmons by breezes. To do so, Ishii-San put the olive pulp, the waste product of making olive oil, on rocks near the shore and then toast them. The experiment took 3 years and it was worth it.
The toasted olives were caramelized, sweet and malty that pleased the cows. And something earthshaking happened—the beef contains a high content of monounsaturated oleic acid and an incredible umami flavor. Hereafter, the extraordinary Olive Wagyu was born.
Why Is Olive Wagyu So Special?
Olive Wagyu is poetically marbled, tender, juicy, overflowing with robust and umami flavor.
Olive Wagyu won the top prize of “best fat” in Japan’s Wagyu Olympics in 2017 which are held every 5 years. In other words, it kicked out the rest of 182 Wagyu beef and became the king of fat! Its fat consists of 65.2% of oleic acid that is the highest among any other beef. Oleic acid is a kind of monounsaturated fatty acid which is the major composition of the health benefits of olive oil. It helps reduce blood pressure, level of “bad” cholesterol, and risk of getting coronary heart disease. It has a low melting point and thus delivers the melt in the mouth texture.
Apart from the fine fat, Olive Wagyu possesses a great amount of glutamic acid and peptides which cause a bolder umami flavor even when compared to Kobe beef. The content of glutamic acid is 1.5x and that of peptide is 1.4x of the regular Japanese beef.
All these result in this fabulous Olive Wagyu beef and it saves the cattle farmers in Shodoshima Island!
Where To Buy Olive Wagyu Beef In the USA?
Olive Wagyu is super rare and it is hard to purchase one even in Japan. But the co-founder of Crowd Cow, Joe Heitzeberg, worked directly with Ishii-San and helped bring this mythical Wagyu beef to America.
To try, you can go to the website of Crowd Cow and become a member to access this scarce Olive Wagyu beef. What you need to do is to select your favorite cuts, create an account and place an order, and then join the membership at checkout. A 16 oz A5 Olive Wagyu Ribeye Steak costs $240 that is pricey but it deserves it!
Crowd Cow Membership Perks:
- 5% off all recurring orders (& gifts)
- Free delivery on orders $99+
- Member-only pricing
- Early access to new products—be the first real gourmet among your friends to taste the amazing Olive Wagyu beef!
Bonus: Check out the latest Crowd Cow FREE membership appreciation program. On any subscription order over $149, you can switch to a different free product:
- 2lbs Mishima Reserve Ground Wagyu
- 2lbs Grass-Fed & Pasture-Raised Ground Beef
- 12oz Thick Cut Heritage Bacon
- 1 Beecher’s World’s Best Mac & Cheese
- 12oz Norwegian Atlantic Salmon (2 filets)
- 1lb Pasture Raised Chicken Breasts
- 3lb Free Range Ground Turkey
Summary
Olive Wagyu is a legend in the beef industry. It got ahead of itself and overcame the fierce competition of Wagyu beef. And now you are lucky to have the chance of tasting this one-in-a-million beef. If you are a real beef aficionado, don’t miss it! It’s even more worth being proud of than Kobe beef, haha!
► Read More: Learn Wagyu Beef In 10 Minutes | The Finest Beef In The World
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