Product knowledge
What is hab el aziz?
Hab el aziz is the Arabic name for the tiger nut — despite the name, not a true nut but a small underground tuber from the nut sedge plant (Cyperus esculentus), also called nut sedge or chufa in other regions. It's eaten as a snack and used to make sweet drinks in several culinary traditions, and, pressed, is also used to produce an oil.
Levant Direct stocks Nut Sedge Oil (Tiger Nut / Hab El Aziz) from El Captain of Cairo — the pressed oil, not the whole tuber — in our natural oils range.
It's one of the more specialist names in that range, so this page is aimed mainly at buyers who already recognize hab el aziz and want to confirm exactly which format we carry it in.
Tiger nut, tuber and oil
The tiger nut tuber itself is chewy and mildly sweet, eaten as a snack in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Spain, and used to make horchata-style drinks in some regional cuisines. It's a genuinely different product experience from the pressed oil, which is what's in our catalogue under the hab el aziz name.
If a customer is specifically looking for the whole dried tuber rather than the oil, that's worth clarifying up front — our current listing is the pressed oil, sold as a single-ingredient natural oil rather than a snack food.
Despite its common English name, the plant isn't botanically a nut or a legume at all — it's a sedge, a grass-like plant whose small underground tubers are the part that's harvested, dried and either eaten whole or pressed for oil.
How we describe it
Nut sedge oil sits in the same catalogue as the dozens of other pressed seed and herb oils El Captain produces, and we describe it the same way we describe the rest of that range — by plant origin and tradition, not by health outcome. Some producer and retailer literature in this category describes traditional uses in more medicinal terms; our own product copy keeps to what the oil is and where it comes from, which is the appropriate register for a natural oil sold as a food and cosmetic ingredient in Canada rather than a regulated health product.
That keeps the page useful for a buyer who already knows the name and wants confirmation of what we stock, without implying anything about what the oil does.
We apply that same descriptive-only standard across every specialist oil in the catalogue, not just the well-known ones — consistency here is part of what keeps the whole range trustworthy rather than selectively cautious.
Ordering it alongside the wider range
Nut sedge oil is a smaller, more specialist item within our natural-oils catalogue, best ordered as part of a broader inquiry across the El Captain range rather than as a single-line request — combining it with more commonly stocked oils like sesame, castor or black seed gives a more efficient quotation. See how inquiry-based ordering works for the mechanics.
Specialty grocers serving customers who already recognize the name are the most natural buyer, since this isn't a product most shoppers discover browsing — it's one they come looking for specifically.
As with cress seed oil, a first order for this line is usually a modest trial case rather than a heavy commitment, since demand tends to be steadier and narrower than for the catalogue's better-known oils — worth pairing it with a larger order of more familiar oils rather than ordering it alone.
Related questions
Is hab el aziz a true nut?
No — despite the name, tiger nut is a small tuber from the nut sedge plant, not a true nut. It's also called chufa in some regions.
Do you sell the whole tiger nut or the oil?
We stock the pressed oil — Nut Sedge Oil from El Captain — rather than the whole dried tuber eaten as a snack in some cuisines.
Can this oil be ordered with other natural oils in one inquiry?
Yes — it's typically ordered alongside more commonly stocked oils like sesame or black seed as part of one combined inquiry across the natural-oils range.
What kind of plant does hab el aziz come from?
A sedge, Cyperus esculentus — a grass-like plant, not a nut or legume family plant, whose small underground tubers are harvested and either eaten whole or pressed for oil.