Adramytini Olives
The famous oil olive of Lesbos: the same variety as the Turkish Ayvalık across the water.
The Adramytini (or Adramitiani) is the great oil olive of Lesvos, the Greek island in the north-east Aegean famous for its oceans of olive trees. It gives a soft, sweet, golden, low-bitterness oil that many find very easy to love. It is, in fact, the same cultivar grown directly across the strait in Türkiye as the Ayvalık — one olive, two countries, two names.
- Origin
- Lesvos · Greece
- Type
- Oil olive
- Colour
- Green to black
- Flavour (oil)
- Soft, sweet, golden
- Bitterness
- Low
- Twin
- Ayvalık (Türkiye)
- Best for
- Gentle, sweet everyday oil
One olive, two shores
Lesvos is carpeted with millions of olive trees, and the Adramytini is its heart — a productive variety giving a mellow, sweet, golden oil, gentle and approachable rather than green and fierce. Look across the narrow water to the Turkish coast and the very same cultivar grows as the Ayvalık, named for the town of Ayvalık. It is a perfect illustration of how olive names follow borders, not biology.
Soft, sweet, low-bitterness oils like Adramytini are lovely fresh but, lower in polyphenols, are best enjoyed young rather than stored. Lesvos oil is often excellent value — look for the island named and a recent harvest.