Advertise
Note: This article was AI-translated from Arabic and is currently under manual review. The author is not responsible for any translation errors. Please refer to the original Arabic text for the most accurate and authoritative information.
The Egyptian Olive Series | Every Land Has a Story, Every Oil a Signature
Episode One
If a drop of oil had a memory, what would it tell us if it came from the land of El Tor?
Before we ask about the variety or the harvest date, the story of the place takes us to the sacred valley of Tuwa, where God called out to Moses, peace be upon him; to the Mount where God spoke to the one He addressed directly; and to that awe-inspiring scene the Holy Qur'an depicts in the words of the Almighty: "And when his Lord manifested His glory to the mountain, He levelled it, and Moses fell down unconscious" (Al-A'raf, 143). Among all that the earth brings forth, God singled out the olive tree with the description of blessing, and He swore by the fig and the olive, then by Mount Sinai, saying: "By the fig and the olive, and by Mount Sinai" (At-Tin, 1–2). In another verse He brought together the name of the land, the gift of the tree and the nourishment of people in a few words: "And a tree that springs forth from Mount Sinai, which produces oil and a relish for those who eat" (Al-Mu'minun, 20).
This is why I chose to begin the "Egyptian Olive" series here: in a good land that God honoured by mentioning it, and with a blessed tree whose fine oil Egyptians know on a piece of bread. In each episode we visit one of Egypt's lands, listen to its people, and then follow the fruit from its branch to the table. In South Sinai, the first stretch of the road passes through four scenes: an olive press stone in El Tor, harvest crates in Ras Sudr, an oasis orchard in Feiran, and ancient olive trees among the mountains of Saint Catherine.
In the old monastery of El Tor stands a witness that visitors may hurry past on their way to more famous sights. It is a black granite olive press, which South Sinai Governorate lists among the features of the monastery, built in the time of Emperor Justinian in the sixth century AD. That is the date the monastery was built; dating the press itself requires independent evidence. What the stone tells us is enough: people lived here, gathered olives and knew how to extract their oil.
El Tor also has a modern agricultural face. Behind the city stretches the El Qaa Plain, where groundwater enters into the calculation of every agricultural expansion, and the city has a pilot olive mill supervised by the Agriculture Directorate. Between the well and the mill lie the farmer's most important decisions: before buying a seedling, he needs to know how saline his water is and whether his soil is suitable, and before picking the fruit, he needs to know when the mill will receive it. El Tor truly deserves an open harvest day, when children can see the old press stone, then taste the season's oil and get to know who grew it.
On the coast of the Gulf of Suez, Ras Sudr stands out for its agricultural weight: it recorded the largest olive area among the governorate's cities in the 2019 survey. In the Abu Suweira area, the Agriculture Directorate's mill provides a direct service to local people, and in October 2026 the governorate documented it receiving farmers' fruit and pressing it for them for a nominal fee.
To understand the value of this mill, it is enough to look at the harvest through the eyes of a small orchard owner. He may manage to pick his whole crop in a single day, only for the fruit to sit overnight piled up in sacks, waiting its turn. In a few hours, part of the fruit of a whole year's care is lost. But if the farmer books a pressing slot and prepares clean, ventilated crates and transport, he can leave the olives on the branch until the right time and shorten the path between picking and pressing. This is a service that neighbours with adjoining orchards can cooperate on, and its effect shows in the aroma of the oil before it shows in the account books.
In Wadi Feiran, part of Abu Redis, the olive tree has neighbours among the fruit trees. Around the Monastery of the Seven Maidens, the governorate describes orchards that benefit from rain and well water, in an oasis known for its monasteries and for traces of human settlement among its mountains. Here the olive story widens to include the art of tending a mixed orchard, whose owner knows where his water comes from and how to share it among trees with different needs and fruiting seasons.
This local knowledge deserves to reach the buyer honestly. The word "rain-fed" (ba'li) on the bottle means the trees relied on rainfall for their water, and it is information to be confirmed with the orchard owner before the marketer prints it. Feiran oil has a story worth telling as its people have lived it: the name of the valley, the source of the water and the harvest season. These small details carry enough distinctiveness to spare the producer any exaggeration.
In the highlands of Saint Catherine is an orchard we can see through the eyes of a visitor who passed by more than two centuries ago: in 1816 the traveller Burckhardt described the olive trees of Wadi El Arbaein. When the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) documented this orchard belonging to the monastery, it reported that at the time of documentation it held more than seven hundred old olive trees. In this way, writing has preserved for us the name of the orchard and the type of trees, and brought closer to mind a side of the life of the mountain people and the monks of the monasteries.
That testimony opens a question worth exploring jointly by researchers and orchard owners: by what names do they know their trees? When do the trees flower and the fruit ripen in each location? And what characteristics do we find in the oil if each batch is pressed separately? Documenting the trees and tasting their oils over successive seasons gives the phrase "mountain oil" a meaning people can put to the test, and preserves for the people of Saint Catherine their share in writing the history of their orchards.
The agricultural statistics bulletin gives us an overall picture of these very different places. In 2023, the olive area in South Sinai Governorate reached 24,413 feddans, of which 19,404 feddans were fruit-bearing, producing 24,042 tonnes of olive fruit. These figures cover the governorate as a whole; the quantity of oil is another calculation, which starts by knowing how much of the crop went to the mills and how much went to pickling, and then measuring what was actually extracted from each batch.
The distinction between the table and the mill begins on the day the seedling is chosen. Those aiming at the pickling market look at fruit size, flesh texture and what the processor demands; those aiming at the oil market care about regular bearing, oil yield and oil characteristics. That is why varieties such as Koroneiki, Picual and Coratina deserve local comparison for oil production, just as Toffahi and Aggizi deserve evaluation for table use. The judge is a trial on nearby land, showing how the variety responds to the well water, the winter cold and the conditions of flowering and fruit set; what succeeds on the coast needs a new test when it climbs into the mountains.
After the harvest, the mill's responsibility begins: sound fruit is received, leaves and impurities are removed, the fruit is washed with clean water when needed, then crushed, and the malaxation time and temperature of the paste are controlled before separation. After extraction comes the removal of residual water and sediment, appropriate filtration, and storage of the oil in food-grade stainless steel tanks, protected from light and heat with minimal contact with air. Nitrogen can be used in the headspace at the top of the tank to help preserve quality until bottling.
What the consumer most needs to know is that low acidity alone does not earn an oil the "extra virgin" grade. The maximum free acidity is 0.8 g, expressed as oleic acid, per 100 g of oil. The oil must also meet the quality and purity criteria, including the peroxide value and ultraviolet absorbance. Methodical tasting also has its say: the median of sensory defects must be zero, and the median of the fruity attribute must be above zero. Perhaps the most beautiful thing a visitor can learn on a harvest day is to smell, in a glass of oil, the trace of sound fruit, and then understand what a specialist means when describing an oil as "fruity".
Let us imagine a guest at a restaurant in Sharm El Sheikh, Dahab or Nuweiba who dips a piece of bread in an oil he likes and asks the waiter: where does this oil come from? What an opportunity it would be if the waiter could answer with the name of the orchard and show him the harvest season and batch number on the bottle! This is how tourist towns take part in the olive story, and how the farmer gets to meet a consumer who may have travelled thousands of kilometres to sit at a table close to his land.
The experiment can start with a single season: a group of farmers agrees with a mill on receiving slots that take each variety's ripeness into account, the mill keeps the identity of each batch, and the producers share the cost of analysis and sensory evaluation at a qualified body; then hotels and restaurants are invited to taste the oils and choose what they wish to buy. Based on actual demand and production costs, the partners can agree on a fair price and learn what they need for the following season. If documentation over the years proves a clear link between the characteristics or reputation of a particular oil and its origin, protecting it with a geographical indication could be studied. Until that day comes, the first act of loyalty to the land is to write honestly on the bottle where the fruit grew, where it was pressed and where the oil was bottled.
We began in a land where God spoke to Moses, and ended at a table with bread and oil. Between the majesty of the beginning and the familiarity of the table are hands that deserve to be known: one that planted in Ras Sudr, another that shared out an orchard's water in Feiran, a third that tended a tree in Wadi El Arbaein, and a fourth that received the fruit at the mill door in El Tor. This is the Egypt we want to read in this series, land by land, and with its people, tree by tree. Our greatest hope for South Sinai's oil is that people read its name on the bottle, then taste a goodness that prompts them to ask about the orchard.
