Everyone has their thing, mine is getting out of the country every 3 months for a few days and chillin out, drinking, and hitting the grocery stores for chocolates, toiletries we do not here, booze, wine and olive oil. I just opened up the last bottle of organic portugese olive oil I purchased last dec (portugal is too expensive to go to this time of the yr, next trip saint maarten).

But what gets to me is the olive was soooo good. Everything we get here is crap (occasionally you can find half decent stuff, but you pay $$$$ for it).

Any recommendations would be helpful.

I haven't been to Portugal in about 10 years, but the whole Iberian peninsula I think has amazing olive oil. I read a few years ago that the majority of olives from Italy are actually first imported from Spain. Reading your post makes me want to take a trip out there again, but my dollar isn't going really far there these days. I'm a budget traveler and for me the best place is Croatia on the Mediterranean. Of course they aren't on the Euro, which is probably the only reason it's inexpensive there as I felt Croatia was safer and cleaner than many other areas in the Mediterranean.

Sometimes I just came to realize that we don't really get good products, unless like you said if we want to pay an arm and a leg. Wine and olive oil from Europe and green tea from parts of Asia just seem drastically better. The cheapest stuff there is better than our high end stuff.

I guess it's how we consume things. If we consumed as much wine and olive oil as the Portuguese then maybe we would get better quality and cost. We have the highest selections of beers at dirt cheap prices and coffee in the USA I actually think is pretty decent. Living in Brazil for 6 years I remember the coffee here used to be so watered down and tasted horrible, but now coffee here I do think is pretty good. Even though now I'm a tea drinker.

You live in Brazil: TOTALLY AWESOME! When I was in Portugal, I bought these 2 different brands of chocolate bars (the larger ones, one brand was like 1 dollar US and the other, bigger and better was 2 dollars US). You hit it on the head, their low end stuff is better then our high end stuff. I still have about 5 packages of their coffee (Delta) left. Their wine totally kicks ass and is super cheap. And they have a beer called super bock which is to die for. We can get good beers in the states (stella artois, peroni, which are imports, but US microbreweries make some of the best beers anywhere).

I lived there for 6 years, not anymore... I live in the states

amazing to see how many people have vineyards basically in their backyard. Some of the local restaurants that have their local wine is just amazing to me. It's the cheapest thing to drink at the restaurant and it tastes amazing.

I am 50, my grandmother sold her house in 1977 and moved in with my uncle, but until the early 70s they had grape vines. So did my other grandmother (we are greek). A friend of mine sums it up perfectly: americans want everything way too easy and fast.

Also, I was at a wine tasting a few yrs ago and the brazilian wines kicked ass.

I have to be completely honest, I've never had brazilian wine. What was the grape variety did you have? Most brazilans drink something called pinga from sugar cane or other liquors and beer, but wine wasn't as common compared to Portugal.

Americans do want everything fast, easy and cheap

I do not remember, it was ata wine tasting when I was in sarasota and I remember the wine was like 35 bucks a bottle and it was awesome.