Walk into any supermarket today and half the oil shelf says cold pressed. Some of it is genuine. Some of it is refined oil with a traditional-looking label. As more families move away from refined oil, it helps to know what real cold pressed oil looks, smells and behaves like.
None of the checks below is a laboratory test. But together they will tell you a lot about what is inside the bottle.
1. Smell it — real oil smells like its seed
This is the most reliable home check. Refining includes a deodorising step that strips out aroma. So refined oil smells of almost nothing.
- Sesame (gingelly) oil should smell nutty, like the seed itself.
- Groundnut oil should smell clearly of roasted peanuts.
- Mustard oil should be sharp and pungent — it should sting your nose slightly.
- Coconut oil should smell sweet and fresh, like grated coconut.
If your 'cold pressed' oil smells of nothing at all, ask questions.
2. Look at the colour
Refined oils are bleached to a pale, uniform yellow. Wood pressed oils keep the natural colour of the seed: deeper golden for groundnut and sesame, golden-yellow for mustard, and water-clear for coconut when liquid. Colour varies from batch to batch because seeds vary — and that is a good sign, not a bad one.
3. Check the bottom of the bottle
Unfiltered oil naturally carries tiny seed particles that slowly settle as a thin layer at the bottom. Commercial oils are filtered and polished until perfectly clear. A little sediment is normal in genuine wood pressed oil — just let it settle and pour from the top.
4. Watch how it behaves in the cold
Natural oils react to temperature. Coconut oil turns solid below about 24°C. Sesame and groundnut oil can turn slightly cloudy or thick on a cold Bangalore morning. This is normal and reverses at room temperature. We explain why in Why Cold Pressed Oil Turns Cloudy or Solid in Winter.
5. Taste a drop
Put a drop on your tongue. Real cold pressed oil tastes of its seed — nutty, earthy or pungent. Refined oil tastes flat and greasy.
6. Look at the price and the label
Wood pressing is slow and yields less oil per kilo of seed than industrial extraction. Genuine wood pressed oil cannot be priced like refined oil. If the price is close to supermarket refined oil, be careful. On the label, look for the seed name, the pressing method, and the absence of words like 'refined', 'blended' or added preservatives.
The one test that beats all of these: watch it being pressed
Every check above is a clue. Seeing the oil pressed in front of you is proof. At our mill in Chandapura, Bangalore, we offer live crushing — you can watch your seeds go into the wooden press and take the oil home the same day.
Our oils are wood pressed below 35°C, unfiltered, and have no preservatives. Nothing added, nothing taken away.
Explore our oils: Sesame (Gingelly) Oil · Groundnut Oil · Coconut Oil · Mustard Oil
Free delivery in Bangalore on orders of 5 litres and above. Other states: free delivery on orders of ₹3,500 and above.