We know that the pistachio tree is closely connected with Aegina, but we don’t know exactly when it arrived on the island.

The famous German botanist Theodor von Heldriech vistited Aegina six times during the 19th century. In his work the “Flora of Aegina” he refers to all the native plants which were discovered by him and earlier botanists. He also noted the plants which were cultivated in different areas (vines, olives, cereals, vegetables etc). But he doesn’t mention the pistachio tree. However that doesn’t mean that there weren’t some individual trees in some gardens which escaped his notice.

There is a version which says that the pistachio tree came to Aegina from Persia in 1867. It is also worth noting that in the Kypraiou estate there were some very old trees which an ancestor had brought from Chios, towards the end of the 19th century. One of those trees still survives today.

Latterly, in Aegina’s historical archives, Anna Yiannoulis found a document which is a serious indication that there were fruit-bearing pistachio trees in Aegina in 1896. The document is a summons sent by one Konstantinos Tsoumas against Vasileous Granitsa. Tsoumas states that he delivered to Granitsa 12 ‘okades’ (one oka was 1.282 kilos until it was discontinued in 1959) of pistachios for him to sell on his behalf at 4 drachmas an oka. After Granitsa sold them he should therefore give Tsoumas his share of 48 drachmas. Even though Granitsa sold them he refused to give the money to Tsoumas. From the summons it appears that it is a simple local transaction and the amount of nuts mentioned could have come from one or two productive trees in a garden.

There are no references to pistachios in Greece before the 19th century.
In 1838 the French naturalist Bory de Saint Vincent writes that he saw pistachio trees in Figaleia and in Pylos. In 1856 pistachio trees were also to be seen in Zakynthos. These were however individual trees, not plantations.
In 1860 the chocolate industry importer D. Pavlidis established the first organized pistachio nursery on his estate at Psychico. In 1869 Orfanidis started cultivating pistachio trees at the Municipal Nursery. Gennadios, who succeeded him in 1882, continued his work.
After the Second World War the pistachio trees began to spread in Greece. There was a sudden great expansion in pistachio cultivation between 1950 and 1960. Today there are pistachio nurseries in all of Greece, north and south, and in the islands.

In the 1st century A.D. Dioscorides Pedanius mentions that pistachios are produced in Syria and have pharmaceutical qualities. Dioscorides was the most distinguished pharmacologist of the ancient world. His book “Regarding Medical Matters” (De Materia Medica in the Latin translation) remained in use until the Middle Ages.
Pliny wrote in the 1st century A.D. that at the end of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (around 30 B.C) the pistachio tree was introduced into Italy from Syria by Vittelius and the same year into Spain by Flaccus Pompeius..
In the 2nd century A.D. (131-200 ?) the famous Greek physician Galen of Pergamum mentions that the pistachios at Alexandria, and above all those at Verroia in Syria, are useful for the health of the liver.
In the 2nd century A.D. Athenaeus of Naucratis, who lived for the greater part of his life in Alexandria, in his work Deipnosophistai wrote that the pistachios that are served at the tables of the wise are produced in Syria and are exceptionally tasty.
Around 900 A.D. the Arabs took possession of Sicily from the Byzantines and introduced the cultivation of the pistachio, “grafting the wild ones to domesticate them” as it says in relevant texts.  
Cultivation extended over a wide area on the slopes of Mount Etna, which possessed the ideal combination of volcanic soil and favourable climatic conditions.

In his description of the pistachio tree Theophrastos does not give it a name. He says that Asian trees that are not to be found among the plants of Greece do not have names.
The first writer to use the word “pistakia” is the poet Nicander of Colophon (2nd century B.C.). Nicander also writes that “pistakia” are to be found in India and resemble almonds, adding that they have the quality of being able to protect one from scorpion bites. The word “pistakia” comes from the ancient Persian word “pista” meaning pistachio. This word is the root of the name for the pistachio in most languages: pistache (French), pistachio (English), pistashka (Russian), fustuk (Arabic).

The first writer to refer to the pistachio tree in the Greek language, and to describe it, was Theophrastos of Eresos In his work “The natural history of plants” he gives the following description of the pistachio tree: “It is said that a tree grows there (in India) resembling the turpentine tree. This is true of the leaves, the branches and other features apart from the fruit, which is different and similar to almonds. This tree is also said to grow in Bactria. Its nuts are the same size as almonds and look like almonds, but their shell is not rough and in taste they are superior to almonds, which is why in this place they are preferred to almonds.” As far as we know Theophrastos never went to Asia. He took his description of the pistachio tree from one of the historians who followed Alexander the Great on his Asian expedition.

Sicilian scholars have developed the theory that the pistachio tree was cultivated in Palestine in the time of Jacob, a hypothesis with textual support from the Old Testament. Chapter 43 of the book of Genesis speaks of a great famine in the land. The reference is to the seven years of hunger. There was grain in Egypt, where following Joseph’s advice corn had been stored in large quantities to cover the need for food during the seven years of hunger. Jacob then told his sons to go Egypt to buy food and bring it back to Canaan. He also counseled them to take with them, together with the silver, some of their country’s finest products: a little balsam, honey, perfumes and myrrh, walnuts and pistachios (“botnim”). These they were to offer as presents to Joseph.

Until the late 19th century the exact place of origin of pistachios was not known. At the end of the 19th century European botanists on a visit to the Middle East who saw the extensive pistachio plantations put forward the view that they came from Syria, Turkey and/or Mesopotamia. But in 1929-1930 Russian botanists on a visit to Central Asia found pistachio trees growing wild in vast expanses of the mountains and the plains, forming a kind of forested steppe on terrain of poor ecological composition. The region where wild pistachio trees were growing extended over Northern Iran, Northern Afghanistan, Northern Turkmenistan, Eastern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and into Kyrgyzstan. It is to be concluded from this that Central Asia is the place of origin of the wild ancestor of today’s cultivated pistachio.