Chetoui Olives
The oil olive of northern Tunisia: greener, more bitter and more peppery than the Chemlali of the south.
The Chetoui is the main oil olive of northern Tunisia, the cooler, wetter half of the country around Béja and the Tell. Compared with the mild southern Chemlali, it gives a greener, more robust oil — fruitier, more bitter and peppery, with higher polyphenols and better keeping. Between them, Chetoui and Chemlali cover Tunisia’s two olive worlds, north and south.
- Origin
- Northern Tunisia (Béja/Tell)
- Type
- Oil olive (some table)
- Colour
- Green to black
- Flavour (oil)
- Green, fruity, bitter, peppery
- Polyphenols
- Higher than Chemlali
- Keeps
- Well
- Best for
- Robust Tunisian oil
Tunisia’s green northern oil
Tunisia is one of the world’s great oil producers, and it has two faces: the soft, sweet southern Chemlali, and the bolder northern Chetoui. Grown in the cooler, hillier north, the Chetoui gives a green, fruity, distinctly bitter and peppery oil with a healthy polyphenol load and good shelf life — a robust, characterful extra virgin that surprises people who think of North African oil as merely mild.
Tunisian single-origin oil — long exported anonymously in bulk — is now bottled under its own name and offers superb value. A named Chetoui is a robust, green, peppery oil worth seeking out, and a fine demonstration that the olive belongs to Africa too.