Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club

What's in the box: Each quarterly shipment holds fresh-pressed extra virgin olive oils from one or more artisanal producers, plus a printed Pressing Report with background, tasting notes and serving ideas.

The Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club is built around one idea: olive oil tastes best soon after pressing, and supermarket bottles can sit on shelves for months. T.J. Robinson, who calls himself the Olive Oil Hunter, founded the club. It gets its oils from artisanal farms through exclusive arrangements and ships them to members four times a year, timed to harvests around the world. Each shipment comes with a Pressing Report that covers the producer, olive varieties, region and harvest, along with tasting notes, a plan for hosting a tasting party and ideas for using each oil. The club says every oil is independently lab-certified as 100 percent extra virgin, which speaks to a real concern about mislabeled oils in stores. The money-back guarantee is unusually generous: you get a full refund without returning the oil, and you can cancel your membership at any time. The downsides are mostly about fit. The website relies heavily on marketing language, and the homepage does not show pricing, so you have to dig to find out what it costs. Quarterly deliveries may also be more oil than occasional cooks can finish while it is at its freshest. For people who cook with olive oil often and care about flavor, it is a credible, well-organized option.