Picky customers greet the start of Jordan’s olive oil season

Syrian refugee employees choose olives within the north-eastern plains of Jordan and cargo them on to lorries that take the crop to Israel, the place it’s pressed for oil.

“It fetches extra money there,” says a Jordanian supervisor of a 16,000-tree farm within the space of Umm Jimal, just a few kilometres from the ruins of a Roman metropolis constructed from basalt close to the border with Syria.

Plenty of timber within the space are irrigated from unlawful water wells as deep as 500 metres, which require massive electrical energy technology capability to run, elevating price of manufacturing as olive demand from Israel feeds the trade.

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However Jordan’s most prized olive oil doesn’t come from Umm Jimal. That distinction belongs to the bael, or rain-fed, olive groves close to the cities of Jerash and Irbid within the north-west. The soil in these areas additionally tends to be redder.

Earnings per individual per 12 months is $4,100 in Jordan and the nation of 10 million folks is parched.

Many households, nonetheless, are choosy with regards to olive oil, preferring to purchase it in 20-litre containers from household farms — whose homeowners they’ve identified for generations — fairly than from the grocery store.

An inflow of expatriate cash within the Nineties prompted land purchases in outlaying areas and plenty of well-to-do folks planted their newly acquired property with olive timber.

Youssef Al Zubi, a farmer from the village of Ketteh close to Jerash, manages about 400 olive timber on behalf of land homeowners in neighbouring Dibbeen, considered one of few areas in Jordan with pure forest cowl. The realm was a refuge for Yasser Arafat and the remainder of the Palestinian command through the 1970 Jordanian civil struggle.

Final week, Youssef began selecting the olive timber adjoining the forest, largely hiring his prolonged household. He took the crop to 2 presses in Jerash governorate. One has Italian equipment, the opposite German.

The Italian press course of the olives at 35°C and the oil seems to be cloudy inexperienced and fragrant.

The German press operates at 15°C and the inexperienced oil that comes out is extra pure and tastes sharper, although it requires 8 per cent extra olives to supply the identical quantity, partly as a result of the fruits have been pressed at decrease temperature.

“The standard of the press issues,” says Youssef, predicting that the German pressed oil will protect its style and color longer.

Youssef additionally had some oil from final 12 months. It had turned yellow however nonetheless had a particular aroma.

The olives are souri baladi (home-grown Levantine), versus the nabali selection grown in Mafraq and in different industrial-scale farms in Jordan.

The baladi selection is extra delicate to temperature and local weather. Unseasonal rain in April has harmed the crop and 20 litres of souri baladi oil is promoting at $140 this 12 months, in contrast with $100 final 12 months.

In 2020, costs dropped to $70 per 20 litres, partly as a result of rain got here on the proper time and was plentiful, leading to hovering provide.

“Provide is tight this 12 months and no matter we’re selecting is promoting instantly after it’s pressed,” says Youssef, referring to the baladi selection in Dibbeen.

The Agriculture Ministry expects Jordan’s general olive oil manufacturing to rise 20 per cent this 12 months to twenty-eight,000 tonnes. Many of the manufacturing will likely be consumed domestically as exports stay very small.

However one container of Dibbeen olive oil travelled by service taxi to Beirut by way of Syria this week, destined for a senior Lebanese engineer launched to the oil on a private go to to Jordan two months in the past.

“One thing tends to be not proper in Lebanese olive oil,” the engineer says.

Jordan’s output remains to be a fraction of huge olive oil producing international locations, reminiscent of Tunisia, Italy and Greece, and even the 165,000 tonnes produced in Syria in 2010, the final 12 months earlier than the revolt in opposition to 5 a long time of Assad household rule.

Mustafa Walid, a Syrian assist employee from Idlib, a area in northern Syria well-known for its olive oil, tasted this 12 months’s output from Dibbeen and stated it was “90 per cent nearly as good is Idlib’s oil.”

“Ours has a bit extra physique and is a bit sharper,” says Mustafa. “However Dibbeen’s olive oil is actually good.”

Up to date: October 27, 2022, 11:00 PM