Stonehouse California Olive Oil, San Francisco

What to buy here: Extra Virgin House Blend ($14). The past decade has seen a resurgence in California oil production which first began when 16th-century Spanish missionaries introduced what is now known as the Mission olive to the New World and which lapsed into horticultural neglect for the several centuries that followed. In 2008, the University of California at Davis established the Olive Center – the first olive research and education facility in North America and a division of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. Its purpose: to help vault California olives to high rankings and to a league on par with its Mediterranean competitors. Stonehouse’s Silver Ridge grove harvests Mission olives along with Manzanillo (the most common variety of Spanish olive) and Barouni olives (a tree developed in Tunisia). Olive oil has been called one of the healthiest cooking oils due to its antioxidative properties and high levels of monounsaturated fats (which lower cholesterol and improve overall heart health).

The Stonehouse farm is located east of Chico in north-central California at the edge of the volcanic Table Mountain plateau and on an 80-plus-year-old organic olive grove called Silver Ridge. Its store is in the Ferry Building Marketplace.