What to buy on Santa Maria: ear biscuits, woven blankets, wicker and island clay

What Santa Maria makes by hand, it sells from a few small workshops, a cooperative in Santo Espírito and the shelves of ordinary food shops. Most of it is biscuits and drink. Then come blankets, yarn and baskets, and pottery from island clay, a craft that nearly died out and has come back in one small studio. Below is what is worth bringing home, where to find it, and which places to ring before you drive over.

If you make one shopping stop on the island, make it the Cooperativa de Artesanato de Santa Maria, next to the church in Santo Espírito. A group of women from the parish set it up in 1989 to keep the island's weaving, bread-making and baking alive and to bring some work to a small village. It still runs as two rooms: a weaving room, where you can watch the looms and buy what comes off them, and a kitchen that bakes the island's traditional biscuits.

The weaving carries the regional "Artesanato dos Açores" certification, the government label for Azorean handicraft. The kitchen makes biscoitos de orelha, cavacas, júlias, encanelados and several plainer butter and chocolate biscuits. Visitors are often allowed to watch the ear biscuits being rolled and snipped. There are no organised tours, so ask at the door.

The island's tourism site lists the hours as weekdays 8:00 to 12:30 and 13:30 to 16:00, Saturdays 9:00 to 14:00, closed on Sundays and public holidays (checked October 2026). The listing carries no date, so ring +351 296 884 888 if you are coming specially. Afternoons end early, and a Saturday visit has to be a morning one.

The Museu de Santa Maria is a few steps away and closed on Mondays. Our guide to Santo Espírito covers the church, the museum and the drive east.

The biscoito de orelha is the island's best-known biscuit: a small triangle whose corners are cut with scissors so they stick out like ears. It is shaped by hand and made only on Santa Maria. After baking it goes back into the oven to dry out, so it ends up hard, keeps well and does not crumble in a bag. Of everything on this list, it is the easiest to take home.

The cooperative's other biscuits are worth a mixed bag:

• Cavacas on Santa Maria are not the flat glazed cakes of the mainland. They are round, hollow and crisp.
• Júlias are small balls with a coating built up in layers.
• Encanelados are soaked in a generous amount of sugar syrup, so pack them flat and in a box.
• Biscoitos de aguardente, also called biscoito estrelado, crack open in the oven and come out looking star-shaped.

Bags of ear biscuits are also sold in food shops and craft shops on the island, which helps if you reach the cooperative on a Sunday. More on what they taste like and when they are eaten is in our guide to Santa Maria food.

The vineyards on the terraces of São Lourenço and Maia bays make vinho de cheiro, a light, scented wine from American grape varieties, made the traditional way. The island also makes aguardente (a grape spirit), vinho abafado (a fortified sweet wine), bastardinho and a range of liqueurs, mostly by hand and in small quantities, so what you find depends on the shop and the year.

For something with a label and a certificate, look for Céptico. A wine project led by the Vila do Porto municipality presented it in May 2024 as the first Santa Maria wine certified IG Açores. If you fly home with hand luggage only, bottles over 100 ml cannot go in it, so either check a bag or drink the wine on the island.

Santa Maria's sheep supplied the wool for jumpers, socks and knitted caps, and the looms turned it into blankets, sometimes woven from scraps. Two places keep that going:

• The weaving room at the cooperative in Santo Espírito, described above, sells certified pieces off its own looms.
• The social shop of SALVATERRA, a local development and solidarity association, sells "Ovelhinha da Ilha", hand-spun yarn from the island's sheep. It is the souvenir for anyone who knits.

The Centro de Artesanato de São Pedro, a loom workshop in São Pedro parish, still appears on maps and older lists. The island's own tourism site lists it as closed until further notice, so do not plan around it.

Wicker baskets on Santa Maria were working tools, many of them made for the grape harvest, and wheat or barley straw went into hats and baskets. Aida Bairos keeps the wicker craft going in a small workshop at Rua do Cotovelo 18 in Vila do Porto, doing every step by hand from the raw willow to the finished piece. The workshop sells small pieces of basketry and straw work, but only by appointment: call +351 296 883 348 a day or two ahead.

For centuries Santa Maria was the pottery island of the Azores. It had clay to spare, and its kitchenware and handmade roof tiles were shipped to the other islands. The main pit was the Barreiro da Faneca, the red clay landscape in the north. Pottery and roof tiles were made on the island until the end of the 1980s. After that the trade stopped, and what is left is mostly memories, the pots themselves and a few old kilns.

To see the old work, go to the Museu de Santa Maria in Santo Espírito, whose permanent exhibition is about clay, ceramics and everyday life. Its winter hours (1 October to 31 March) were listed in 2024 as Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30 to 17:00; check by phone on +351 296 884 844.

To buy new work, look for SÓ Atelier in the centre of Vila do Porto, in the old Armazém Lisboa building. Four women opened it in the spring of 2023. One of them, Tânia Bairos, makes pottery from Santa Maria clay to bring the old craft back. The atelier has held workshops for visitors and a monthly exhibition by artists with a link to the island. We found no published opening hours, so ask in town or message the atelier before you go.

The regional events calendar has listed a craft sale by island makers ("Artesanato Mariense") at the Mercado Municipal in Vila do Porto on the first Saturday of each month, from 9:00 to 13:00. We could not confirm the 2026 dates, so check at the market or the tourist office before you count on it.

The meloa de Santa Maria, the island's melon with EU protected status since 2015, is in season roughly from July to September. It is soft, heavy and does not travel; eat it on the island. The same goes for anything from the cooperative's bread oven. Buy the dry biscuits for home and the fresh bread for the next picnic.

What is the best souvenir from Santa Maria? A bag of biscoitos de orelha. They are made only on the island, shaped by hand and hard enough to survive a suitcase.

Where can I buy local crafts on Santa Maria? At the Cooperativa de Artesanato in Santo Espírito for weaving and biscuits, at Aida Bairos's workshop in Vila do Porto for wicker (by appointment), and at SÓ Atelier in Vila do Porto for new pottery from island clay.

Is the craft cooperative open on Sundays? No. Its listed hours are weekdays 8:00 to 16:00 with a lunch break, and Saturday mornings until 14:00. Call +351 296 884 888 to check.

Is Santa Maria pottery still made? The old trade ended in the late 1980s. A small studio in Vila do Porto now makes pottery from island clay again, and the Museu de Santa Maria shows the historic pieces.

• Explore Santa Maria: Cooperativa de Artesanato de Santa Maria
• Explore Santa Maria: gastronomy, sweets and other products
• Explore Santa Maria: clay
• Explore Santa Maria: sheep's wool
• Explore Santa Maria: wicker
• Explore Santa Maria: Oficina de Artesanato de Aida Bairos
• Diário de Notícias: Santa Maria, a ilha dourada (2024)
• Santa Maria vineyard project (Vila do Porto municipality)