By If you haven’t heard of olive wagyu, don’t worry you’re not alone.
A few weeks ago we brought you news of the most expensive steak in the world and now we’ve gone one further with the rarest. And it’s a thing of beauty. Only about 2,200 of this specific cattle exist in the world today. With those crazy low numbers it may not come as a surprise that only a few are harvested per week. Making this a seriously rare piece of meat.
Olive Wagyu – which is also known as Sanuki Wagyu – is only produced on Shodoshima Island in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture. “Olive Island,” as it’s become known, is the place where olive trees were first successfully grown in Japan. Fast forward more than 100 years, and its thriving olive plantations are one of Shodoshima’s tourist attractions. And also created an unintended but awesome side effect.
The video below explains all:
After the olive plantations press the fruit to make olive oil, they have mountains of leftover pulp. Seven years ago, farmers started to said pulp into their cows’ feed and the result was a kind of beef that is crazy high in oleic acid, giving the meat a rich, buttery taste, and a super tender feel. One Seattle-based reviewer put it nicely when they described the texture and flavor as “beefy foie gras.”
The mono-saturated fat makes up 65.2% of olive wagyu’s fat content, which is far higher than any other beef in the world and is what gives steak the desired soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture. This incredible marbling is also what led this variety of beef to win the award for best fat quality at the 2017 Wagyu Olympics – yes, that’s actually a thing and I’m booking a ticket right now.
Due to the hugely limited production of these cattle, olive wagyu is difficult to find in Japan, let alone the U.S. — but that all changes tomorrow, For the first time in history, olive wagyu will be sold directly to consumers in the U.S by Crowd Cow. However there’s a slight catch.
You’ve gotta have already been signed up to the service for a chance to get your hands on the holy-beef, but there’s still time. If you sign up right now and place an order then your beef-dreams might just come true tomorrow. And this steak is truly once in a life time.
Good luck meat fans.