Bergamot

Origin

Grown almost exclusively along the Ionian coast of Calabria in southern Italy, where the climate and soil suit the small inedible fruit. The essential oil is cold-pressed from the rind rather than the flesh, yielding a fragrant green-gold oil.

The smell

A bright, sunlit citrus that opens with a sharp lemon-lime sparkle then softens into something rounder and faintly floral, almost soapy in its cleanness. There is a green, bitter edge beneath the sweetness, like the oil that sprays from a peel when you twist it. It smells of Mediterranean afternoons and freshly pressed linen.

Key quality

The radiant top note that opens half the classic colognes ever made.

Historical use

Bergamot has flavoured Earl Grey tea since at least the early nineteenth century, when the oil was used to scent and stretch lower-grade black teas. It was the defining citrus of the original Eau de Cologne devised by Giovanni Maria Farina in Cologne in 1709, and remained the backbone of fougère and chypre compositions throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.