Almost every cold pressed oil brand in India shows you a photograph of a wooden press and expects the picture to do the explaining. Very few say what the machine is, how it works, or why its slowness is the whole point. So here is the plain version: what a marachekku or gaana actually is, what happens inside it, and what that leaves in the bottle.
One machine, several names
The same device is called different things depending on where you are standing. In Karnataka it is a gaana, sometimes mara gaana — wood gaana. In Tamil Nadu it is marachekku, from mara (wood) and chekku (press). North India calls it a kolhu or ghani. English-language marketing has settled on "wood pressed" or "wooden cold press".
They are all describing one idea: crush oilseed between wood, slowly, and let the oil come out on its own rather than forcing it out with heat or solvent.
What the machine actually is
A gaana is a mortar and pestle scaled up to the size of a small room.
The mortar is a deep bowl, traditionally cut from a single block of hardwood, set into the floor. Inside it stands the pestle — a heavy wooden shaft, angled slightly, that does not pound up and down but rotates, grinding seed against the inside wall of the bowl. Seed goes in at the top. As the pestle turns, the seed is crushed, then crushed again, and the oil separates out and pools at the bottom, where it drains through an opening into a collecting vessel.
Historically a pair of bullocks walked the circle and turned the shaft. Most working gaanas today, ours included, are turned by a motor. The motor is not the thing that matters. The speed is.
Why it turns so slowly
This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the only part that really explains the price difference.
Friction makes heat. The faster you grind something, the hotter it gets. A gaana is geared to turn at a crawl — you can stand and watch it and it does not look like it is doing much. That low rotation speed keeps the friction low, and low friction keeps the temperature in the bowl down. Nobody is chilling the oil; "cold pressed" does not mean refrigerated. It means no heat was added, and the process itself was kept slow enough not to generate much.
Heat is what drives off the volatile compounds that make sesame oil smell like sesame and groundnut oil smell like groundnut. Keep the temperature down and those compounds stay in the oil. That is the entire trade: you give up speed and yield, and you keep smell, colour and taste.
Where "cold pressed" gets slippery
There is no single temperature number that everyone in the industry agrees on, which means the phrase "cold pressed" on a label is doing less work than it appears to. A high-throughput screw press — an expeller — is also mechanical, also solvent-free, and is also sometimes sold as cold pressed, but it runs far faster and runs hotter as a result.
Refined oil is a different process again: the oil is usually pulled out of the seed with a solvent, then bleached and deodorised into something pale and near-odourless. We have written out the five refining steps we leave out, and the difference between wood pressed and cold pressed is worth reading if the labels have you confused.
What comes out of the press
Two things, not one.
The first is the oil, which is cloudy when it comes off the press and carries fine seed particles. It is left to settle, then passed through a simple filter. It is not bleached and it is not deodorised, so it keeps the colour of the seed it came from.
The second is the press cake — hindi in Kannada — the compressed dry remains of the seed. It still holds oil, because a mechanical press cannot get all of it out. Groundnut and niger cake goes to cattle feed, and on a working press it is a real part of the economics, not a waste product.
Why a gaana gives you less oil
Solvent extraction dissolves almost all the oil out of the seed. A wooden press squeezes some of it out and leaves the rest behind in the cake. Same quantity of seed, less oil in the bottle, and the press runs slowly on top of that.
That is the honest answer to why unrefined oil costs more per litre than the refined bottle beside it on the shelf. It is not a premium for the story. It is arithmetic.
What this means for the bottle in your kitchen
Oil that comes off a gaana behaves differently from refined oil, and people who switch are often briefly convinced something is wrong with it:
- It is darker. Nothing bleached it.
- It smells strongly of its seed. Nothing deodorised it. Sesame oil (ellenne) is the loudest of the lot.
- It may throw a light sediment at the bottom of the bottle. That is seed matter settling, and it is normal.
- It has a shorter comfortable life once opened, because the compounds that refining strips out are still in there. Keep it away from heat and sunlight — here is how to store it properly.
How to tell whether you are actually getting gaana oil
A photograph of a wooden press proves nothing. What you can check yourself:
- Open the bottle and smell it. Unrefined oil announces itself.
- Look at the colour against a white background, and look at the bottom of the bottle after it has stood for a week.
- Check the price against the refined bottle. If it is only marginally more expensive, the arithmetic above does not work.
- Check the FSSAI licence number on the label — ours is 1122632300006 — and verify it yourself on the FoSCoS portal.
- Run the simple home tests if you want to go further.
Our own press, and what happens before and after it, is written out on our process page. If you want the range, the full list of oils is here — groundnut (kadalekai enne) is where most households start, and we press niger oil that the national brands do not bother with because North Karnataka kitchens need it.
Frequently asked questions
Is a motorised gaana still a wood press?
Yes, provided the mortar and pestle are wood and the rotation stays slow. Bullocks and a motor are two ways of turning the same shaft. What changes the oil is speed and temperature, not the source of the power.
Is "wood pressed" the same as "cold pressed"?
Wood pressed is one way of cold pressing — the traditional one. "Cold pressed" is a wider term and can also cover modern presses run at low temperature. It can also be stretched by marketing, which is why the method and the evidence in the bottle matter more than the phrase.
Does the wood affect the taste of the oil?
The wooden bowl is there because it conducts heat poorly and does not react with the oil, not because it flavours it. What you are tasting is the seed.
Why does sediment settle at the bottom of my bottle?
Because the oil is filtered simply rather than industrially clarified, some fine seed matter stays in it and settles over time. Tilt the bottle gently before pouring, or leave the last inch.
Do you deliver outside Mysuru?
Across Karnataka and across India. There are city pages for Davanagere, Bengaluru and Hubballi-Dharwad, and the full delivery terms are here. All orders are prepaid.