A Grower’s Map of Syria
Syria rarely comes up when people list great olive countries, yet for years it ranked among the world’s largest producers. The groves of Idlib, Aleppo and the coast hold millions of trees and several distinctive native varieties. War disrupted the trade, not the trees — many still bear, tended by families who have done so for centuries.
The four growing belts
Syrian olive cultivation concentrates in four broad zones. The northwest — Idlib and Aleppo — is the densest, home to vast plantings of the oil variety Sorani and the dual-purpose Zaiti. The coastal strip around Latakia and Tartus, milder and wetter, favours the plump table olive Kaissy. Inland toward Afrin lies some of the oldest continuous olive country anywhere, with ancient terraces. Finally the south, around Daraa and the Damascus countryside, grows smaller volumes for local use. Together these belts once gave Syria close to a million tonnes of olives in a strong year, a figure that placed it firmly among the global leaders.
Varieties worth knowing
Three native cultivars carry the country. Sorani is the prized oil olive of the north, giving a robust, fruity oil with good stability — the backbone of Aleppo’s famous soap as much as its kitchens. Kaissy is the large, fleshy table olive of the coast, cured green or black. Zaiti, as its name (“of oil”) suggests, leans to milling but doubles for the table. These are not international stars, and you will rarely see them named on a Western shelf, but they are the genetic and cultural bedrock of one of the Mediterranean’s oldest olive cultures.
If you ever see “Aleppo” on an olive-oil soap, that fat, gentle bar owes its character to local Sorani oil blended with laurel. Genuine examples are made the slow way and worth seeking out. With bottled Syrian oil scarce abroad, the soap is, for many, the most accessible taste of the country’s groves.
Compiled from International Olive Council figures and regional agronomic records.