Mallorca doesn’t just make olive oil. It cultivates it in landscapes shaped slowly over centuries: stone terraces etched into mountainsides, silver-green trees leaning toward the sea, and the scent of wild rosemary carried on the breeze. The result is Oli de Mallorca D.O.P., a protected designation awarded by the EU in 2002 and produced today by around 1,200 growers and some 25 traditional mills across the island.
The oil comes primarily from Mallorquina, the island’s own gentle, fruity olive, blended in some groves with Arbequina and Picual. On the steep slopes of the Serra de Tramuntana, many trees are older than the village churches they overlook — 500 years is common, and 1,000 isn’t rare.
The island’s microclimate is its secret: salty Mediterranean breezes, limestone soils that drain quickly, and sharp day-night temperature changes. This shapes an oil with notes many tasters identify instantly: almond, fig leaf, green apple, and fresh herbs. Harvest earlier and you get a green, lightly bitter oil the island calls afrutado. Pick later and it softens into dulce, round and golden.
Chemically speaking, Mallorcan oil is quietly superior:
• Oleic acid often over 70%, linked to lower LDL cholesterol
• High polyphenols and vitamin E, natural antioxidants
• Acidity rarely above 0.4%, well under the 0.8% limit for extra virgin
Unlike many mainland regions, Mallorca still uses low-temperature cold extraction (below 27ºC). This protects aroma, enzymes, and nutrients — the difference you taste immediately when the oil hits warm bread.
The island produces around 400,000 liters a year, much of it snapped up in Germany, the UK, and Scandinavia, where Mallorcan oils are known for elegance rather than intensity.
More than a staple, Oli de Mallorca is a concentrate of landscape — sunlight, stone walls, salt air, and time.
El mejor aceite de oliva ecológico del mundo se hace en Sóller
Mallorca, A Secret Paradise for Figs From All Over the World
- By
Hélène Huret
A few kilometres from Llucmajor, just 150 metres above sea level, on a sun-drenched plain, an extraordinary conservatory preserves a botanical treasure trove: more than 1,400 varieties of fig trees from over 60 countries. This unique site, called Son Mut Nou, is the work of one man: Montserrat Pons i Boscana. For three decades, this pharmacist by training and self-taught botanist, has transformed the family finca into a plant sanctuary, where each fig tree is pampered, labelled and documented.
“Mallorca,” Montserrat proclaims with a smile, “is a paradise for fig trees." With its Mediterranean climate, arid soils and generous amount of sunshine, the island offers ideal conditions. “Even the Romans came here to plant figs because it was better than in Italy,” he says.
“Mallorca had around 22,000 hectares of fig trees. Today, only 800 remain.” The same applies to pig farming, which fell by 80% between the 19th century and the end of the 20th. His Mut Nou has become the largest open-air laboratory dedicated to the fig tree in the world. Each tree is a living treasure, bearing an agronomic, historical and cultural memory.
Montserrat i Pons has travelled the length and breadth of the island to find old, forgotten or endangered varieties of fig trees. He takes part in all the international congresses devoted to the fig. Through contact with other experts, he is constantly enriching his conservatory of rare varieties. “My project is not to produce figs to sell, but to preserve them,” he explains. “When I'm no longer here, I want each fig tree to return to its country of origin, like a plant library returned to the world.”
His Mut Nou is not just a conservatory: it's also a place for raising awareness. “Today, 90% of children between the ages of 9 and 12 in Mallorca have never tasted a fig,” laments Montserrat. Hence the importance of the guided tours he organises for schools, associations and tourists. The tour often ends with a tasting session in the shop. As well as figs, the shop sells chutneys, jams, vinegars, fig bread, beer, cava and homemade ice creams. The flagship product is a surprising fig coffee, inspired by an Austrian recipe that originated during the First World War, at a time when coffee was in desperately short supply. “The Austrians used to come to Mallorca and Turkey to buy figs, roast and grind them into powder and use them as a substitute for coffee,” says Montserrat. Today, his fig coffee is made from eight carefully selected Mallorcan varieties, in collaboration with the University of the Balearic Islands. It's a unique product that has won over the island's top chefs.
The fig tree, as old as time itself, is steeped in sacred and symbolic stories. According to Genesis, after tasting the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves to hide their nakedness
As long as Montserrat i Pons is here, the fig trees will have a father to watch over them.
Did you know Mallorca holds the largest collection of fig varieties in all of Europe and the world?
For such a small island, it carries an astonishing abundance — over a thousand local types, from honey-dark jewels eaten straight from the tree to pale green varieties destined for drying or baking. And with fig season now underway, the island’s markets and orchards are overflowing with them.
Here, figs are never just fruit. Every old finca once had a fig tree planted at its entrance, so travellers could pluck one as they passed. They are part of identity, heritage, even language. Indeed, the Catalan tongue is full of sayings about them:
«La figa, quan és madura, per ella mateixa cau» — when the fig is ripe, it falls on its own. Mature things require no effort — they come naturally.
«Qui és bo de figues, que no digui mal de sa figuera» — he who enjoys figs should not speak ill of his own fig tree. A reminder not to criticize what benefits us.
«Si hi ha una bona figa, és per a un porc» — if there’s a good fig, it goes to a pig. Used ironically to note when something valuable ends up with someone who doesn’t deserve it — and, more cheekily, when unattractive men marry very beautiful women.
Over centuries, Mallorcan fig varieties have toughened themselves to the island’s extremes: thriving in rocky soils, surviving long droughts, and ripening under the fiercest sun. That resilience gives the fruit its concentrated sweetness and perfume — a flavor that sets it apart.
At the heart of this heritage lies
Son Mut Nou, near Llucmajor, today Europe’s largest fig collection. On this estate, more than 3,000 trees grow side by side, representing over 1,300 varieties gathered from across the Mediterranean, the Americas, and Oceania. The project is the life’s work of Montserrat Pons i Boscana, a pharmacist turned fig evangelist.
Son Mut Nou is less an orchard than a living archive: preserving genetic diversity, rescuing traditional species, and reimagining the fig’s cultural and culinary place in Mallorcan life. Visitors — especially now, in peak fig season — can stroll among the trees, taste different varieties, and glimpse why this fruit has sustained, and symbolized, the island for centuries.
https://humansofmallorca.com/did-yo...collection-of-fig-varieties-in-all-of-europe/
In the world of figs and fig trees, Llucmajor plays a perhaps surprisingly eminent role. Not very far from this capital of the Migjorn region one can find Son Mut Nou, an experimental farm of 15 he…
mallorcaphotoblog.com
Apotheosis of the Fig Tree in Mallorca
Much more important to Montserrat Pons than harvesting two tons of figs is to recover a variety on the point of extinction. His experimental site in Mallorca is home to the most comprehensive private collection of fig trees in the world.
On the estate there are 3,000 specimens from 1,384 different varieties, a substantial number, as there are 2,200 in the whole world
https://www.foodswinesfromspain.com...8/july/apotheosis-of-the-fig-tree-in-mallorca
Do you think the fig has the place it deserves in the restaurant culture?
"Absolutely not; at least in Mallorca, figs are only eaten by people who have fig trees or who go to the market. This fruit has been overlooked by cooks, and barely features in restaurants. The few that do feature it use foreign varieties. That’s something that needs to be changed… because we could work miracles!"
How far has the fig tree been essential for the survival of the Mallorcan population?
"It's been crucial. In fact, until recently, before the arrival of tourism, Mallorca had a subsistence economy and was totally dependent on the countryside, and on the yearly crops. In the mid-19th century, the fig was the most cultivated tree on the island, ahead of almonds and carobs. And together with broad beans, bread and vegetables, figs were one of the staples of our daily nourishment. In the words of the aforementioned Toni d’es Forn, figs were the dessert of the rich and the bread of the poor"
Can you give us an exclusive preview?
"Yes, two unique products in the world: tea made from dried fig leaves, currently in the experimental phase, and a sparkling fig wine, which is turning out to be too costly. We are also putting the finishing touches to a fig coffee based on a recipe that used to be made in Austria over 100 years ago with figs from Turkey and Algeria. This formula was collected in 1899 by Toni d’es Forn, a scholar from Llucmajor who founded the agricultural journal “Es pagès mallorquí”(the mallorcan country man." There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else.
In the heart of the Marina de Llucmajor (Mallorca) is the Son Mut Nou estate, the largest Fig Tree Experimentation Field in the world. Montserrat Pons y
visitllucmajor.com