How we make it
From the farm we bought the seed at to the batch code on your bottle. Seven steps, and you are welcome to come and watch any of them.
The machine
What a wooden chekku actually is
A chekku — ghani in the north, marachekku in Tamil — is a deep wooden mortar with a wooden pestle turning inside it. Seed goes in the top. The pestle rotates slowly, crushing rather than grinding, and oil seeps out and drains from the base.
Speed is the whole argument. Modern expellers spin fast, and friction at that speed pushes the oil well past 100 °C. A chekku turns at a walking pace, so the oil leaves the press barely warmer than the room. That is why the aroma is still in it.
It is also why the yield is poor and the process is slow. We have not found a way around that, and we have stopped looking — the slowness is the product.
Step by step
Seven steps, start to finish
Sourcing
We buy the seed ourselves
Direct from farms we have visited, in single lots we can trace back. No mandi mixing, no sacks of unknown origin. When we change a supplier, the batch code changes with it.
Preparation
Sun dried in the open
Seed is dried in open air to the right moisture, never kiln-forced. Too wet and the oil clouds and spoils early; too dry and the yield collapses. This step is judged by hand and it is the one that most affects the final bottle.
Cleaning
Hand sorted
Stones, husk, broken and discoloured seed are picked out before pressing. Nothing is bleached to hide a poor lot — a poor lot is simply not pressed.
Pressing
Wood pressed under 45 °C
Into the chekku, turning slowly. We measure the oil coming off the press and record the temperature for the batch. No solvent touches the seed at any point — there is no second extraction of the cake.
Clearing
Settled, not filtered
The oil stands for several days in steel tanks and the solids drop out on their own. We use cloth to catch what remains. No bleaching clay, no chemical filtration — which is why a little sediment reaches you.
Testing
Batch sampled and lab tested
A sample from every batch goes to an accredited laboratory. The report is filed against the batch code and we will send it to you if you ask for it.
Bottling
Glass, capped, batch coded
Filled into glass, sealed, and labelled with the press date and batch number. Then it goes out — we press to order rather than build stock, so the bottle you get is usually weeks old, not months.
What we don't do
The short list
Sometimes the clearer statement is the one about what is absent.
No solvent
Hexane never touches the seed or the cake. What the press cannot squeeze out stays in the cake and goes to cattle feed.
No refining
Nothing is degummed, neutralised, bleached, winterised or deodorised. The oil that leaves the press is the oil in the bottle.
No additives
No synthetic antioxidants, no preservatives, no anti-foaming agents, no colour, no fragrance.
No blending
One seed per bottle. We do not thin an expensive oil with a cheap one, which is the commonest fraud in this trade.
No plastic
Glass only. Oil is a solvent, and it sits against its container for months.
No health claims
We sell food, not medicine. Better oil, honestly made — and nothing beyond that.
Ready when you are
Taste oil that still smells like the seed.
Tell us what you cook with and we'll send the next press. If a bottle arrives damaged, leaking or wrong, tell us within 7 days and we replace or refund it.