KachiGhaani.com
Cold pressed vs wood pressed: are they the same thing?
The short version. All wood pressed oil is cold pressed. Not all cold pressed oil is wood pressed. "Cold pressed" describes an outcome — oil taken mechanically, without external heat and without solvent or refining. "Wood pressed" describes the machine that did it: a wooden ghaani, the traditional kolhu. One is the category; the other is the oldest and slowest method inside it.
Is wood pressed oil the same as cold pressed oil?
Not quite. Wood pressed oil is a subset of cold pressed oil. Cold pressed means the oil was expressed mechanically without applied heat, solvent, bleaching or deodorising — a slow steel press can meet that description. Wood pressed means the press itself is a wooden ghaani, which is slower still and is what "kachi ghani" refers to.
In Indian retail the two phrases are used almost interchangeably, and on our own labels you will see both, because the oil in the bottle qualifies as both. The distinction only becomes important when you are comparing brands, because "cold pressed" is the looser of the two terms and a good deal easier to stretch.
What does "cold pressed" actually mean?
It means the seed was pressed without applying external heat, and the oil was not extracted with a solvent, refined, bleached or deodorised. There is no single legal temperature number attached to the phrase in India. Producers commonly work to a ceiling somewhere between 45°C and 60°C at the press, but that is convention rather than a defined standard.
That looseness is worth knowing about. Because no number is enforced against the phrase, a fast screw expeller that generates 90°C or more through friction alone can still be marketed as cold pressed, on the argument that no heat was added. The seed disagrees. Friction heat does the same thing to aroma compounds that a burner would.
What is a wooden ghaani, and how hot does it get?
A ghaani — kolhu, chekku, sekku, mara chekku, depending on where you are in India — is a large wooden mortar with a wooden pestle that rotates slowly inside it, grinding the seed until the oil weeps out. It turns slowly enough that the seed and the oil stay close to ambient temperature, typically well under 50°C even on a Gujarat afternoon.
Slow is the whole design. Speed generates friction, friction generates heat, and heat is what drives off the volatile compounds that make an unrefined oil smell of the seed it came from. The wooden ghaani gives up yield to keep those compounds. That is the entire bargain, and it is why the oil costs what it costs.
Is a steel expeller press still cold pressed?
It can be. A slow, unheated steel rotary press with a cooling arrangement keeps oil temperatures in the same band as a wooden ghaani and produces an honest cold pressed oil. The problem is the other kind: high-speed screw expellers, which push seed through fast and can take the oil to 90–120°C through friction alone while the label still says cold pressed.
So the material question is not wood versus steel. It is how fast the press turns and how hot the oil gets. Wood happens to be a reliable proxy, because a wooden ghaani physically cannot be run fast.
Is "kachi ghani" the same thing?
Kachi ghani is the Hindi term for the same idea: kachi meaning raw or unheated, ghani meaning the press. Kachi ghani oil is oil from a slow, unheated ghaani, sold as it comes. In Indian food regulation the phrase appears most formally in relation to mustard oil, but in everyday use it covers the whole traditional category.
How can you tell which one you are actually buying?
Use your nose first. A genuine cold pressed oil smells emphatically of its seed — peanut, mustard, toasted sesame, coconut. It has colour rather than being water-pale. It usually carries fine sediment. It states a short shelf life. And it costs noticeably more per litre than the supermarket bottle beside it.
- Aroma. Strong and seed-specific. A faint or neutral smell means heat or refining somewhere in the chain.
- Colour. Amber, gold, reddish-brown or deep black depending on the seed. Not pale.
- Sediment. A little settling at the bottom of an unfiltered oil is normal and expected.
- Shelf life. We print 4–6 months. A twelve-month claim on an "unrefined" oil is worth a question.
- Batch and date. A pressing date rather than only a best-before tells you the bottle was pressed to order.
- Price. Lower yield costs more seed per litre. An unrefined oil priced at refined-oil rates is telling you something.
Cold pressed vs wood pressed vs everything else
| Wooden ghaani (kachi ghani) | Slow steel cold press | High-speed expeller | Solvent extracted and refined | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Press material | Wood mortar and pestle | Steel screw or rotary, cooled | Steel screw, uncooled | Expeller plus solvent plant |
| Typical oil temperature | Ambient to about 50°C | Under about 60°C | Roughly 90–120°C from friction | Up to about 200°C in deodorising |
| Solvent | None | None | None | Food-grade hexane |
| Bleached or deodorised | No | No | No | Yes, both |
| Aroma retained | Fully | Mostly | Partly | Removed by design |
| Sediment | Yes, if unfiltered | Some | Little | None |
| Oil recovered from the seed | Lowest | Low | High | Highest |
| Typical shelf life | 4–6 months | 4–6 months | 6–9 months | 9–12 months |
| Sold as "cold pressed" | Yes, accurately | Yes, accurately | Often, questionably | No |
| Price per litre | Highest | High | Moderate | Lowest |
So which should you choose?
If you want the fullest aroma and you are buying on flavour, choose wood pressed, and accept the shorter shelf life and the higher price that come with it. If a brand you like uses a genuine slow steel cold press, that is a legitimate cold pressed oil too. The one to be sceptical about is the cheap bottle that says cold pressed but smells of nothing.
- Wood pressed: most aroma, lowest yield, highest price, 4–6 months.
- Slow steel cold press: close behind on aroma, slightly cheaper.
- High-speed expeller: cheaper, but the heat has already cost you the aroma.
- Refined: a different product altogether — neutral, stable, cheap, and better for repeated deep frying. We have set out exactly what the refining process takes out of the oil in its own comparison.
Every oil we sell is Truly Cold Pressed on a wooden ghaani at our USFDA-registered press house at Changodar, Ahmedabad, under FSSAI licence 10724999001232, and bottled unrefined, unbleached and undeodorised.
Smell the difference for yourself with the Trial Pack of 5 Oils, or go straight to the everyday bottles: Wooden Cold Pressed Groundnut Oil, Wooden Cold Pressed Black Mustard Oil and Wooden Cold Pressed Coconut Oil. To see the whole range on one screen, use the side-by-side oil comparison table.