How Syria Makes Its Oil
Syria mills its olives the way much of the eastern Mediterranean once did: a mix of old stone presses and modern centrifugal lines, with a strong thread of household production running through it. The country’s milling story is inseparable from one famous by-product — the laurel soap of Aleppo.
From the grove to the press
Harvest runs from autumn into early winter, much of it still by hand or by beating branches over nets on the steep northern terraces. Traditionally the fruit went to stone-mill presses — granite wheels crushing olives to paste, then pressing under mats — and many village mills still work this way. Larger operations have shifted to continuous centrifugal systems that are faster and cleaner. The northern Sorani crop, rich in polyphenols, is well suited to both: its natural stability forgives the slower old methods and shines under modern, temperature-controlled milling when growers can afford it.
The soap that shaped the trade
No account of Syrian oil is complete without Aleppo soap. For centuries, a share of the region’s olive oil was set aside not for the table but for saboun — boiled slowly with laurel-berry oil and lye, then cut into blocks and aged for months. The trade gave local oil a guaranteed second market and reinforced the value of stable, robust Sorani. War damaged Aleppo’s soap quarter badly, and production scattered, but the craft survives in the city and among makers who fled. Where you find genuine Aleppo soap, you are, in a sense, holding the region’s olive oil in another form.
Real Aleppo soap is graded loosely by laurel content: the more laurel oil, the softer, greener and more expensive the bar, and the longer it was cured. A genuine block is heavy, faintly olive-green inside under a tan crust, and lathers gently. If it’s cheap, bright green throughout and heavily perfumed, treat the “Aleppo” on the label with suspicion.
Compiled from regional milling history and International Olive Council references.