Lebanon: souvenirs
Lebanon's souvenirs taste of cedar and orange blossom - soap, wine, sweets and the crafts of a trading coast. Here is what travellers bring home from Lebanon, where the good versions live, and the export questions worth a look - alongside our 52 written places.
The classic buys
Tripoli soap and orange-blossom water
The old khan soap-makers and the distilled blossom water in every Lebanese kitchen.
Lebanese wine and arak
Bekaa valley bottles - and the anise arak that turns cloudy and convivial.
Cedar crafts
Carved cedar-wood pieces sold with seedling-planting programs - the tree of the flag, bought responsibly.
Baklava and sweets
The pastry houses box for travel - pistachio everything.
Za'atar and seven-spice
The blends that define the kitchen, from spice mills in the souks.
Glass from Sarafand
The recycled-glass blowing tradition of the coast in greens and blues.
Check before you buy
- Antiquities (Phoenician above all) cannot leave without permits nobody grants tourists - replicas are sold as such.
- Wine and arak count against allowances - the Bekaa ships to many countries.
- Check your home country's current import rules for the region.
✗ Better left behind
- 'Phoenician' coins and glass from stalls - protected or fake.
- Wild-cedar items without provenance - the plantation-wood pieces fund replanting.
Markets shift, workshops close and open, and the best souvenir is still the one with a story you were there for. Buy from makers where you can, keep receipts for anything substantial, and when a deal feels too good, it usually is.