Through the ages, olive oil has become synonymous with Palestinian cuisine, particularly in the Galilee where the hillside village of Rameh is located.

The picture of an olive tree or olive grove spells Galilee as much as a Mediterranean Sea sunset, or a mosque or a chapel on top of a mountain village.

Olive oil is an integral part of almost all popular Palestinian dishes, from Arabic vegetable salad, Tabooleh, Hummus to Manaqeesh and from Musakhan, Muhammar to Kibbeh Nayeh.

Hundreds of studies have explored olive oil’s health benefits over the last six decades, ever since Ancel Keys initiated his famous Seven Countries Study in the 1950s, and found out that Mediterranean populations tend to live longer and suffer less from heart disease, high blood pressure and strokes than North Americans and northern Europeans.

What is Khalaf Olive Oil?

Khalaf olive oil is an extra virgin olive oil produced from ancient olive trees of the Souri variety growing in Rameh Valley.

Ar-Rameh (Rameh) Valley has been home to olive trees for several millennia and its oil has been dubbed liquid green gold. Khalaf’s olive grove is located on the eastern part of the valley, where the rich soil produces a bold, pungent olive oil that has been famous throughout the eastern Mediterranean for many centuries.

Khalaf olive oil is an extra virgin olive oil produced from ancient olive trees of the Souri variety growing in Rameh Valley.

Rameh retains its title as Palestines's premium olive oil hotspot for many centuries, a bulletin published by The U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1910 mentions that Rameh “holds the record for the productivity and quality of its olives. There is here a fair degree of uniformity in the character of fruit, and the best methods of cultivation in the country are here in use.”

Why does the location of the grove have an influence on the flavor?

This has to do with the natural characteristics of the location. Characteristics like the soil, how much sun, how much rain and the temperatures in the region.

The Mediterranean climate; warm and dry summers is something characteristic for Rameh.

Approximately 8 hours of sun a day, which is quite a lot, makes sure the fruits have the ability to ripe. This gives a soft and fruity flavor to the olive. In the fall it is important that the olive trees get enough rain. The rain makes sure the olives can swell. In Rameh, rain falls 78 days a year. This is exactly the right amount to let the olives swell just before the harvest. It means beautiful olives are ready at the moment of picking. This is often at the end of November.

What are the techniques in growing, harvesting and milling Khalaf Olive Oil?

Khalaf olives are grown without any artificial irrigation or fertilizers. The trees were never treated with chemicals, never watered! even the 2000+ years old ones. 

We call this Baal – pure organic as nature produces it. Ba’al is the name of the Canaanite god of fertility, weather, rain, wind, lightning and seasons.

The olives are harvested within a tight and specific timeframe, not being allowed to ripen on the trees any longer than absolutely necessary. The oil is then extracted immediately after harvesting and not permitted to be left lying. When olives are just ripe, the olives have enough oil and are at the ideal stage for easy harvest and extraction.

Our olives are harvested only by November and early December, waiting for the olives to be at optimum ripeness and start blackening.

Our extra virgin olive oil is made from the finest olives picked from our grove in Rameh valley

Khalaf olives are always handpicked, blown and washed. Picking the olives by hand means no damage and enables us to select only the best olives. This is absolutely essential for the quality of the oil!

What olive variety is used for Khalaf olive oil?

The authentic type of the olive has a high influence on the flavor. 

All the olives are of the variety Souri coming from the city of Sour (Tyre) located 20mi northwest of Rameh. Tyre has been known for its olive oil for more than 3,000 years. 

The legend says that “Originally the island was not attached to the sea floor, but rose and fell with the waves. An Olive tree of the goddess Ashtart rose there, protected by a curtain of Flames. A snake was wrapped around its trunk and an eagle was perched in it”.

Our premium extra virgin olive oils are crafted from Souri olives, hand-picked from our trees, crushed and cold pressed the same day to ensure the freshest possible oil arrives in each bottle.

Extraction, bottling and storage are carried out in full compliance with good hygiene practices to guarantee our customers impeccable olive oil quality.

So, what does Khalaf Olive Oil taste like?

Our natural olive oil, with an unmistakable aroma and flavor, is made from carefully selected fruit of the Souri variety from Rameh, known for centuries as the queen of Palestinian olive oil.

Our olive oil has a delicate and persistent aroma and a medium fruity flavor.

In an article in NewYork Times our oil was described as follows: “Fresh out of the press, it is bright liquid gold, its aroma reminiscent of the wild grasses and dandelion leaves that grow around the olive trees. People describe it as ripe and smooth, almost like samneh (ghee, or clarified butter)”

Rameh and Olive Groves throughout History

Rameh was known for its olive groves throughout its history, in 1881 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Rameh as "a village, built of stone, of good materials, containing a Greek chapel; it is situated in plains, with large olive-groves, gardens and vineyards; five perennial springs near the village, and several cisterns in it." 

Moreover, Olive oil production can be traced back to thousands of years ago, right around the Sea of Galilee area where Rameh is located. The domestication and exploitation of fruit trees was the key step in creating Mediterranean polyculture, especially the triad of wheat, olive and vines. This process began at the eastern end of the Mediterranean around 5000 BCE but was not completed at its western end until the late 1st millennium BCE. The evidence is consistent in pointing to a place - the Jordan valley - and a time – the Copper Age (or Chalcolithic) – for the first beginnings of olive cultivation. 

This is indicated by an increasing number of olive stones found at archeological sites and a sharp rise in the proportion of olive pollen in lake sediment cores taken at locations from Golan to the Dead Sea. The area around the Sea of Galilee must thus have been located at the heart of the world’s oldest olive oil production. In the millennia since then, evidence shows cyclical peaks and troughs in olive production in this region, with large-scale commercial production and trade during Roman times, but subsequently returning to olive cultivation for local production and consumption. Although olive production was important in places such as Crete almost as early as in Palestine, the biggest commercial olive producers today (southern Spain and southeastern Italy) only took this dominant role in recent centuries.