Olive wood is wood harvested from the olive tree, the same one as we get our olives from. An evergreen tree, it grows across the Mediterranean, from Southern Europe to the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Olive trees grow to only around 25 feet tall and are known for their exaggeratedly twisted and gnarled looking branches. Most olive trees will live to around 500 years old, but it is not unheard of for some trees to exceed that limit by up to two or three times.

During that long life, olive wood has plenty of time to grow denser and create sultry ripples of knotted growth rings. Most olive wood harvests are small compared to more common woods, such as oak or pine, making it rarer and therefore more expensive but the price is well worth it due to its beauty.