- Brightland is a relatively new startup for high-quality, California-made olive oils.
- They taste full-bodied and sharp, and we love using them to fry eggs or drizzle over ice cream.
- Learn more about how Insider Reviews tests kitchen products, including food.
Extra virgin olive oil is the liquid gold of the food world. A quick drizzle of this rich and healthy oil over a slice of crusty bread or bowl of ice cream? *Chef's kiss.*
It's easy to pick up some olive oil at your local grocery store, but, as Brightland founder Aishwarya Iyer learned, not every bottle of EVOO is created equal. The industry is rife with rancid or adulterated olive oil, meaning it's blended with cheap, lower-grade oils, and most of us don't even realize it.
She created Brightland, a direct-to-consumer olive oil company, to give home cooks the honest, high-quality olive oil they deserve. Though it only launched in 2018, it's seeing huge success as a must-own food product that tastes as elevated as it looks.
How Brightland's olive oil is different
Brightland olive oil is made in California with hand-picked, organic heirloom olives. They're harvested early in the process, giving them a slightly bitter, grassy taste, and milled in a certified organic mill.
Extra virgin olive oil contains polyphenols, which are high in antioxidants and linked to health benefits like lowering cholesterol and blood pressure. Brightland's contain more polyphenols than the average EVOO (307-381 milligrams per kilogram, compared to 100-250 mg/kg). As a result, it tastes extra sharp and peppery in the back of your throat.
Brightland olive oil comes in UV-powder-coated glass bottles that protect the contents from light damage. The all-white bottle, adorned with sleek and simple labeling, immediately differentiates it from the tall ochre and green bottles you'd normally hide away in your kitchen cabinet.
Review of Brightland olive oil
The brand's two flagship products are the Awake ($37) and the Alive ($37). With its herbaceous and grassy taste, the Awake is meant for hearty entrees and sides like pasta, bread, chicken, roasted vegetables, and fried eggs. Meanwhile, the Alive is smoother and nuttier, best enjoyed in salad dressings, baked goods, and desserts.
Here are our thoughts on each.
The Awake: Here are the only supplies you'll need for a perfect breakfast: Brightland's Awake olive oil, two large eggs, Made In's nonstick pan, and a spatula from Material Kitchen or Potluck. Except for the eggs, it's a D2C dream-kitchen set-up.
Since olive oil has a higher smoke point than butter (Brightland's is 410°F), the eggs get super crispy and turn a beautiful golden-brown. It's my favorite way to enjoy eggs now that I have Awake on hand. The olive oil also brings out the flavors of proteins like a simply spiced steak, and it's easier to attain a crisp exterior and soft interior for my roasted carrots and potatoes.
The olive oil makes every dish and meal feel like a treat. So, too, does the price, which is more than I'm ordinarily willing to pay for, but it does make Brightland a great treat-yourself, housewarming, or hostess gift. —Connie Chen, senior reporter
The Alive: Ina Garten, my personal goddess, taught me about the merits of using "good" olive oil for dressings and drizzles. For any and all uncooked or room temperature dishes that require a gentle coating of olive oil, I prefer a bright, crisp, just-shy-of-bitter flavor with a peppery finish, and that's just what the Alive gave me.
I used it most recently to dress a salad of thinly sliced celery, chopped dried apricots, toasted pecans, and crunchy Maldon salt, splashed with a bit of white wine vinegar at the end for some acid. The oil coated everything so nicely and made a salad that started as a way to use up leftovers feel like something truly special. —Sally Kaplan, executive editor for Insider Reviews
You can buy Awake and Alive separately or together as The Duo for $74. According to the brand, three-quarters of Brightland's customers go for The Duo to try out both varieties. If you want to save a bit of money, you can also subscribe to a delivery ($65) every one, two, or three months. Twenty percent of customers choose the subscription option, which includes a quarterly gift like a sourdough starter.
Be on the lookout for limited-edition olive oils, too. There's Ardor, a bold and spicy olive oil blended with a variety of peppers, and Lucid, the brand's first flavored EVOO blended with lemons. Both cost slightly more, $40.
Clearly, Brightland is a beautifully packaged olive oil, but it goes beyond it. It's carefully made so you can taste the difference between dishes finished with Brightland and what you're currently using.
