Kalem Bezi olive: characteristics, oil content and growing areas

Kalem Bezi is the oil variety of the Gaziantep and Nizip area. It matches Kilis Yağlık on oil content (31%) but has larger, fleshier fruit — the same oil from fewer olives.

Kalem Bezi in numbers

Source: Efe, Soykan, Cürebal and Sönmez (2016), Zeytin Kitabı. Fields the source leaves blank are shown as "—"; nothing has been estimated.

Why carrying both is rare

A cultivar's table value comes from size and flesh ratio, its oil value from oil content. The two usually work against each other.

Examples:

• Domat — high flesh ratio, 5.30 g fruit, but around 20% oil (table)
• Kilis Yağlık — about 30% oil, but 560 fruits to the kilo and 82% flesh (oil)
• Kalem Bezi — 31% oil and 85% flesh, at 450 fruits to the kilo

That is why Kalem Bezi can serve both purposes. The grower can send the crop to the table or to the mill according to that year's prices — a real hedge against price swings.

We measured separately how far the price of the same olive moves depending on where it goes: the same olive, six times the price.

What 450 fruits to the kilo means

Fruits per kilogram is the most practical measure of calibre. The lower the count, the larger the fruit:

At 450 to the kilo Kalem Bezi is a small fruit — which is what raises its oil content, since a smaller stone and thinner skin leave a greater share of the weight as flesh.

Its place in the south-east

Cultivars grown in south-eastern Anatolia: Eğriburun, Halhalı, Kalem Bezi, Kan Çelebi, Nizip Yağlık, Kilis Yağlık and Yağ Çelebi.

Published pomological measurements are limited for most of them, and the region holds many unnamed local genotypes besides.

Where it stands among measured cultivars

Its position on each axis is shown live in the comparison strip on this page, against every cultivar with a published figure. For the full ranking — and how that ranking is built — see olive variety rankings.

In short

Kalem Bezi is a rare variety combining 31% oil with 85% flesh. At 450 fruits per kilo it is noticeably larger than Kilis Yağlık (560). Even so it has stayed within the Gaziantep–Nizip belt and is little known elsewhere.

The figures here are measured pomological values. Variety-specific phenology and self-fertility data are absent from the official sources we hold; they will be added when found.