The Pistachio is a member of the cashew family is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food. The pistachio tree is native to regions of Central Asia, including present-day Iran and Afghanistan. Archaeology shows that pistachio seeds were a common food as early. So far, the earliest evidence of pistachio consumption goes back to the Bronze Age Central Asia and comes from Djarkutan, modern Uzbekistan. Pistachio trees were introduced from Asia to Europe in the 1st century AD by the Romans. They are cultivated across southern Europe and north Africa.

Theophrastus described it as a terebinth-like tree with almond-like nuts from Bactria. It appears in Dioscorides’ writings as pistákia. vera by its comparison to pine nuts. Pliny the Elder writes in his Natural History that pistacia, “well known among us”, was one of the trees unique to Syria and that the seed was introduced into Italy by the Roman Proconsul in Syria, Lucius Vitellius the Elder, and into Hispania at the same time by Flaccus Pompeius.