Organic Bergamot

Bergamot, the fruit of the bergamot tree, is native to the tropical and subtropical regions of Southeast Asia, like all Citrus, and is said to have been brought to Europe by the Crusaders. Cultivated mainly in Calabria in southern Italy, coastal planting began in the ^18th century. It was an Italian botanist who, in the early ^19th century, discovered that this fruit, known as "Calabrian gold", was the result of hybridization between an orange and a lime. Bergamot owes its nobility to the finesse and power of its olfactory characteristics, but it was its fixing qualities that made it an indispensable ingredient in the creation of a perfume at a time when only natural components were used to amalgamate all the essences and preserve the fragrance over time. It was the chemical industry in the 1950s that made it possible to replace natural substances with chemicals.