Arbequina 25/26: ONSURI’s earliest ever harvest yields higher polyphenols

This year’s edition of ONSURI’s Arbequina is the earliest harvest of the cultivar in the producer’s history.

When harvests are undertaken earlier in the season the olives will be smaller, in turn leading to a smaller yield of oil, but they will also be higher in polyphenols. In the case of Arbequina, it’s 1504.42mg/kg.

This recent harvest was completed last month in October, which is one of the reasons the polyphenols are so high this year. The olives have been pressed and the oil is naturally settling before being filtered and bottled. Due to arrive in the UK in January, the new batch of Arbequina will be part of ONSURI’s oil line-up throughout 2026.

To put this level of polyphenols in perspective, we can take a look at a study that was published in 2007. Researchers studied ten postmenopausal women. Over a period of 8 weeks, they were given a dose of polyphenol oil every day - they were assigned either a low polyphenol dose or a high polyphenol dose. After the 8 weeks each woman was given a rest period to ‘reset’ the effects of the oil on their bodies. If at first they were taking the low polyphenol dose, they then took the high dose for 8 weeks, and vice versa - so each woman got the opportunity to take and measure the effects of each dose. The resulting health effects of both 8 week trial periods for each woman were compared against each other.

On average, oxidative damage to the womens’ DNA was reduced by 30% when they were taking the high polyphenol oil dose, compared with the low dose.

In this study, the high dose consisted of an oil with 592 mg/Kg - and it was taken daily at a dose of 50g (this equates to around 47.5ml or around 2.6 UK tablespoons). To get to the same level of polyphenols in a daily dose with ONSURI’s Arbequina oil then you would only have to take a single tablespoon.

From the example above, we can see that the polyphenol value alone is only part of the equation - we should also think about how much oil we consume each day. This new harvest Arbequina will be great for those looking to get their daily polyphenols without going through a large volume of oil everyday.

For 2026, ONSURI will be shipping oils to the UK in smaller batches - potentially alternating the batch currently on offer between the olive varieties they grow, like Arbequina and Arbosana. Starting with the new harvest Arbequina, it is currently available for pre-order now, with deliveries due to begin in January 2026.