Strakka is an organic estate at Kato Deftera near Nicosia, Cyprus, producing extra virgin olive oil, table olives and olive spreads. The property dates to the Venetian period and has been owned by the Leventis family since 1942.

Which olive varieties does the estate grow?

Three: Koroneiki, Kalamon and the local Cypriot variety, across roughly fifty hectares planted with 8,200 olive trees. The limited edition high phenolic oil is made from early harvest Kalamon.

What does high phenolic mean here?

It refers to the concentration of phenolic compounds such as oleocanthal in the oil, measured in milligrams per kilogram. Commission Regulation (EU) 432/2012 sets a threshold of 250 mg/kg for labelling purposes. Strakka’s early harvest bottling is stated at 1,279 mg/kg oleocanthal for the harvest listed here, and its 2018 Aristoleo Gold placed it in the 1,000 to 2,000 mg/kg band.

What does the oil taste like?

Fruity and spicy, with green apple, tomato leaf and cut grass, a clear bitterness and a peppery finish at the back of the throat. It is an assertive oil, and best used raw where that character can be tasted.

How should it be stored?

In a cool, dark place, out of the fridge, in the dark glass bottle it comes in. Use it while it is fresh rather than saving it.

Strakka Organic Mediterranean Products

Discover the Unparalleled Quality of Strakka

The estate blends three olive varieties: Koroneiki, Kalamon and the local Cypriot variety. That mix is possible because everything happens on one property. Strakka runs its own two-phase mill and bottling line on site, so fruit picked in the morning can be cold extracted within hours, without added water, and the finished oil goes straight into airtight stainless steel tanks until it is bottled.

The point of that speed is phenolic content. Olives lose their phenols to time, air, heat and water, and the estate has organised its harvest around removing those four variables. Cultivation and production are monitored by the departments of Biology and Chemical Engineering at the University of Patras, an unusual arrangement for a farm of this size.

What makes Strakka special

An estate documented on Ortelius’s 1573 map, in the same family since 1942.
Certified organic since 1998, inspected by the Lacon Institute.
Koroneiki, Kalamon and the local Cypriot variety, all grown on one fifty hectare property.
An on-site two-phase mill, with cold extraction within hours of picking and no added water.
Early harvest oil measured well above the 250 mg/kg phenolic threshold set out in Commission Regulation (EU) 432/2012.

Central Cyprus is hot, dry and bright, and the estate sits in the plain between the two mountain ranges that define the island. Olive growing here is old, continuous and domestic.

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The People Behind Strakka

The Leventis family has owned the Strakka Estate since 1942, and George Leventis is its present custodian. The day to day running of the farm, the mill and the awards entries falls to general manager Antonis Papantoniou, who has been the public face of the estate at the international high phenolic conferences where its oils are judged.

What that pairing has produced is a farm that behaves like a laboratory without losing the manners of a Cypriot estate. Visiting groups are shown the groves and the mill, and trees on the property have been dedicated to individual guests and to the chemists whose analytical work made high phenolic olive oil measurable in the first place.

How Strakka began

The estate was established around five hundred years ago, during the years when Cyprus was under Venetian rule, and it has been producing olive oil more or less continuously ever since. Its presence on a printed sixteenth century map is the sort of provenance that cannot be constructed retrospectively.

The modern chapter starts in 1942, when the Leventis family bought the property. The decisive turn came in 1998, when the whole operation, olives and citrus alike, converted to organic cultivation. Everything the estate is known for now, the phenolic figures and the awards, followed from that decision rather than preceding it.

Harvesting early, milling on site

High phenolic olive oil is made in the grove, not in the bottle. The fruit for the limited edition is picked green and unripe, when the phenolic compounds are at their peak and the oil yield is at its lowest. It is a deliberately expensive choice: the same trees produce a fraction of the volume they would at full ripeness.

Because the mill sits on the estate, the interval between tree and press is measured in hours, and for the limited edition within an hour of picking. Extraction is cold and no water is added, which would otherwise wash soluble phenols out of the paste.

Why this matters

Green, early picked fruit yields far less oil per tree, which is why high phenolic oils are made in small quantities.
Milling on site removes the delay that costs most olive oils their aromatics.
Two-phase extraction avoids the added water that would strip soluble phenols.
Independent university monitoring means the figures on the label are measured rather than estimated.
Organic certification since 1998 covers the whole estate, olives and citrus together.

“Strakka turns a five hundred year old Cypriot estate into a measurable proposition: green olives, an on-site mill, and phenolic numbers printed on the bottle.”

A Daily Ritual from Cyprus

Each bottle of Strakka carries the everyday food habits of Cyprus, where olives and olive oil turn up at breakfast as readily as at dinner, alongside halloumi, bread, tomatoes and cucumber.

Koroneiki, Kalamon and the local Cypriot variety, grown and pressed on one estate
Cold extracted within hours of picking, with no added water
Certified organic by the Lacon Institute since 1998
Table olives and olive spreads made from the estate’s own fruit
A considered choice for anyone who wants phenolic content stated as a figure

Strakka brings together a Venetian era property near Nicosia, a modern two-phase mill a few minutes from the trees, and a Cypriot olive tradition that predates every map the island appears on.

Strakka: What Sets a High Phenolic Cypriot Olive Oil Apart

Organic certification governs what goes on in the grove. Harvest date and milling speed govern what survives into the bottle. Strakka controls both, and then has the result measured.

Quality	Description
Certified organic	The entire estate, olives and citrus, has been organic since 1998, inspected and certified by the Lacon Institute under EU organic farming rules.
High phenolic content	The limited edition is made from early harvest Kalamon olives and comfortably exceeds the 250 mg/kg threshold set out in Commission Regulation (EU) 432/2012. The harvest listed here is stated at 1,279 mg/kg oleocanthal.
On-site milling	A two-phase mill and bottling facility on the estate, so cold extraction happens within hours of picking and, for the limited edition, within the hour.
Single estate	Fifty hectares, 8,200 olive trees, three varieties, one owner since 1942. Every bottle is traceable to the same ground.

On the palate the early harvest bottling is fruity and distinctly spicy, with green apple, tomato leaf and cut grass, a bitterness across the tongue and a peppery catch at the back of the throat. That pungency is the phenols making themselves felt, and it is the point of the oil rather than a flaw in it.

Daily Use in the Cypriot Kitchen

An oil this assertive works best raw, where its bitterness and pepper can be tasted rather than cooked away. The estate’s gentler organic bottlings and tins, along with its infused oils, cover everything else.

Use	How to Enjoy
Finishing a dish	A spoonful over grilled fish, roast vegetables, lentils or beans just before serving, where the green apple and tomato leaf notes stay intact.
Olives and spreads	The green olive tapenade on toast, or the black Cypriot olives cured with organic salt on a meze plate beside the halloumi and the bread.
Salads and dressings	Cut with a milder oil if you want to soften the pepper, or use it neat on tomato and cucumber with a little sea salt and oregano.

Keep the bottles somewhere cool and dark, and leave them out of the fridge. The 250ml format exists so that a high phenolic oil gets used while it is fresh rather than admired on a shelf.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Strakka

At Strakka, organic farming is not a marketing layer applied to an existing operation. The estate converted in 1998 and has run that way since, with Lacon inspecting the olives and the citrus together, and with soil left undisturbed so that root systems and soil organisms can do their own work.

Keeping the entire process on one property is itself a sustainability decision. Fruit is not trucked to a communal mill and oil is not moved between facilities before bottling, so the estate can account for its harvest at every stage.

Their approach

A single Cypriot property farmed by one family since 1942, converted wholesale to organic cultivation in 1998 and certified by the Lacon Institute, growing Koroneiki, Kalamon and the local Cypriot variety across roughly fifty hectares alongside more than 2,000 citrus trees, milling and bottling everything in its own two-phase facility, holding the oil in airtight stainless steel until bottling, submitting cultivation and production to monitoring by the University of Patras, and picking a portion of the crop green and early so that the phenolic content can be measured and printed rather than implied. General manager Antonis Papantoniou runs that operation on behalf of owner George Leventis, and the estate opens its groves and mill to visitors who want to see the sequence for themselves.

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Award-Winning Organic Oil and Olives

Strakka has been judged repeatedly at the Aristoleo Awards, which rank entries by measured phenolic content rather than by tasting panel alone. In 2018 the estate took Gold for its organic extra virgin olive oil, in the 1,000 to 2,000 mg/kg band by NMR analysis, alongside Silver for its organic black Kalamon and organic green Cypriot table olives and Bronze for the black scarified Kalamon and the black olives cured with organic salt. In 2017 its black Kalamon olives took Gold for hydroxytyrosol content, with two Bronze awards for the Koroneiki organic oil. The 2018 Gold was presented to Antonis Papantoniou by HRH Princess Basma bint Ali of Jordan.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Strakka

What is Strakka?

Strakka is an organic estate at Kato Deftera near Nicosia, Cyprus, producing extra virgin olive oil, table olives and olive spreads. The property dates to the Venetian period and has been owned by the Leventis family since 1942.
Which olive varieties does the estate grow?

Three: Koroneiki, Kalamon and the local Cypriot variety, across roughly fifty hectares planted with 8,200 olive trees. The limited edition high phenolic oil is made from early harvest Kalamon.
What does high phenolic mean here?

It refers to the concentration of phenolic compounds such as oleocanthal in the oil, measured in milligrams per kilogram. Commission Regulation (EU) 432/2012 sets a threshold of 250 mg/kg for labelling purposes. Strakka’s early harvest bottling is stated at 1,279 mg/kg oleocanthal for the harvest listed here, and its 2018 Aristoleo Gold placed it in the 1,000 to 2,000 mg/kg band.
What does the oil taste like?

Fruity and spicy, with green apple, tomato leaf and cut grass, a clear bitterness and a peppery finish at the back of the throat. It is an assertive oil, and best used raw where that character can be tasted.
How should it be stored?

In a cool, dark place, out of the fridge, in the dark glass bottle it comes in. Use it while it is fresh rather than saving it.

Explore the Strakka Collection

The Strakka range here centres on the numbered limited edition organic high phenolic extra virgin olive oil in 250ml bottles, available singly or in cases of four and twelve, alongside the organic green olive paste and the black Cypriot olives cured with organic salt. It sits within our early-harvest high phenolic olive oil collection, chosen on the same basis: single estate provenance, organic certification, and figures that have been measured.

The estate's wider range runs to 500ml bottles and tins in 500ml, one litre and two litre formats, infused oils with lemon, with orange, with garlic, chilli and mint, and with basil, rosemary and oregano, plus a full line of table olives and spreads made from its own fruit.

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It is a place to understand the details that matter, and the reasons a product earns its place with us.

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Strakka: A Cypriot Estate Making Organic High Phenolic Olive Oil