For Josh Saiia, there's olive oil, and then there's olive oil

After tuning and rebuilding historic pianos for a living, Josh Saiia decided it was time to get in touch with his Sicilian roots.

"The olive oil business was an itch that needed to be scratched," explained Saiia, owner of Oro di Oliva, which offers varieties of extra virgin olive oil, flavored olive oil and balsamic vinegar from around the world.

His adventure with olive oil was unprecedented in Saiia's family, despite their ties to Italy through great aunts and a great-grandfather.

And, Saiia said, "It was an accident that it even happened."

His palette exploded after tasting some olive oil from California.

"It was supposed to taste like freshly mowed lawn and, afterward, it was supposed to have a peppery effect. And it did exactly that," Saiia said.

A month later he got on a plane, determined to authenticate the experience and, if it was legitimate, find out why he hadn't found any oil of its ilk in a grocery store.

"We found ourselves almost on the edge of an olive oil revolution, kind of like coffee that has given rise to our Colectivos and Starbucks," Saiia said.

"This didn't exist anywhere in Milwaukee," he said. "It really was a product and a social experiment."

Despite that, Saiia knew he had to be part of that movement, an attempt to educate palettes about olive oil.

"If you grow up drinking hot chocolate and somebody told you it was coffee, the first time you drink hot chocolate, you'll have a moment of shock."

The same is true for olive oil, Saiia said.

"It is an eye-opening tasting experience, where your palette gets to explore things it may never have tasted before: is there really a difference between fresh olive oil and an old tired brand of oil? You see that play out whenever we have a class," Saiia said. "We'll blind taste test and slip them a sample we bought from the grocery store and, invariably, there is such a huge difference that we, for the sake of drama, don't open it until the end. It's only when you try the two side by side that you have any point of reference."

Nearly seven years later, Saiia's business has grown from a single shop operation, open just three days a week, to a seven-day-a-week regional franchise, with roughly 30 employees and shops in Brookfield, Whitefish Bay, the Milwaukee Public Market and Wauwatosa.

And while the Tosa store was technically his second location – Saiia started the business in Brookfield Square Mall, but closed that shop after six months because of expected renovations at the shopping center – Saiia said his standalone shop on Harwood Avenue feels like the real birth place of Oro di Oliva.

"It was home," Saiia said. "Even as I went about my tuning work, whenever I was in Wauwatosa the community felt like a wonderful place. We decided to jump with that. And, although I love all my stores, Wauwatosa still feels like home."

JUST THE FACTS

BUSINESS: Oro di Oliva,7606 Harwood Ave., Wauwatosa

WEB:www.orodioliva.com

PHONE: (414) 256-8066

OWNER: Josh Saiia

INCORPORATED: 2007

TYPE OF BUSINESS: olive oil shop

PEARLS OF WISDOM: "We are trying to bring the best that this planet offers at a table-consumable price without having to explore the whole planet to get it. The biggest challenge is one thing: first taste. After that, it takes care of itself."