About Us
About Levant Liquid Gold
We started this because of a bottle that kept running out.
Every time family came through from Jordan, they brought oil from the groves in Ajloun. It sat on the counter in a plain plastic bottle and it disappeared in three weeks. Everyone who tried it asked the same question: where do I get this. The honest answer was that you couldn't, unless you knew someone.
So we built a way.
THE GROVES
Our olives grow in Maysar, in the highlands of Ajloun in northern Jordan. It's a region with over 5,400 years of continuous olive cultivation — there are Roman-era stone presses in the ground near Jerash, an hour away.
The trees are Mehras, known locally as Rumi. In 2022 a team from the National Agricultural Research Centre, the University of Jordan, and Jerash University sequenced the Mehras genome and confirmed it as one of the oldest and most genetically distinct olive genotypes in the Mediterranean. Some of the trees in our family's groves are over a thousand years old and still fruiting.
High elevation, cool nights, mineral-heavy soil, and trees that grow slowly. That combination is why the oil tastes the way it does.
HOW WE MAKE IT
Hand-harvested. No mechanical shakers, which bruise the fruit and start oxidation before the olives even reach the mill.
Pressed the same day, below 27°C. Heat raises yield and destroys polyphenols. We take the lower yield.
Lightly filtered, then bottled in dark UV-protective glass. Unfiltered oil looks rustic but the sediment shortens shelf life.
Grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers.
Bottled in California so the oil ships fresh, not after months in a container.
WHAT WE WON'T DO
We won't blend. A lot of what's sold as Italian olive oil is a blend of oil from several countries, bottled in Italy. Ours is one region, one cultivar, one harvest, every time.
We won't hide the date. Olive oil is a fresh product. It has a season and it declines. Every bottle carries its harvest date.
We won't overstate it. We publish the lab numbers and let you decide.
WHO WE ARE
Levant Liquid Gold is a small family business based in Palo Alto, California. We work directly with the families who farm these groves, and we pay above the local rate because they're doing the hard part.
We're not trying to be the biggest olive oil company. We're trying to make sure this particular oil, from this particular hillside, ends up on more tables.
Founder
