Bitter Orange EO

Latin name :

Citrus aurantium

Botanical profile :

The bitter orange tree is a tree of the Rutaceae family and the Citrus genus.

Geographic origin :

Originally from Southeast Asia, the fruits of the bitter orange tree are mainly grown in Spain and Florida.

Chemotypes :

The genus Citrus includes the vast majority of citrus fruits and includes a large number of varieties available in perfumery:
Bergamot - (Citrus bergamia) is a hybrid of lemon and bitter orange, grown for the essential oil of its fruit and petitgrain.
Bitter orange or bigarade orange - (Citrus aurantium), grown in Spain and Florida.
Citron - (Citrus medica), grown in Italy (Sicily).
Lemon - (Citrus limon), cultured in Italy for the essential oil of its fruit and of its leafy twigs (Petitgrain).
Combava - (Citrus hystrix), grown in Thailand and India.
Lime - (Citrus aurantifolia), grown for its fruit in Mexico for the most part.
Mandarin - (Citrus reticulata), grown mainly in Italy for its fruit and for its petitgrain, by extracting the leaves from the tree. Its hybrid with sweet orange gave birth to clementine.
Orange - (Citrus sinensis) is famous for the cultivation of its fruits, whose juice and essential oil are extracted in Brazil and California in particular, which is the most used of all perfumes.
Grapefruit - (Citrus paradisii) of Malay origin, is cultivated for its essential oil in Brazil and Israel in particular.
Yuzu - (Citrus junos), produced in Japan and Korea.

Extraction process :

The bigaradier is a tree about 3 meters tall in adulthood, and provides fruits 7 to 8 cm in diameter.
The harvest is mechanized: a tractor passes between the rows of trees, shakes them to make the fruits fall and take them to the factory in its receptacle. The fruits are sorted mechanically and washed. The pulp and zest are separated to obtain the juice and the essential oil separately.
The extraction is done in the sfumatrice, pricking the zest to extract the aromatic compounds. The essential oil is carried away by a stream of water to be centrifuged, in order to separate the oil from the water and the debris from the peel.
The yield of the essential oil of bitter orange is between 1 and 2%.
In addition, an orange juice concentration gives an ''Oil phase '' essential oil. After the extraction of the juice and the essential oil, the leftovers of the fruit, which are called ''molasses '', allows to collect D-limonene by distillation. Finally, a fractional distillation of the essential oil allows to separately collect an orange terpenes EO and a deterpenated EO (the percentage of deterpenation is specified) which concentrates the essential oil aldehydes, for more power.

The bigaradier gives many extracts. The bitter orange gives an essential oil by cold expression of the fruit. If we treat branches and twigs by hydrodistillation, we obtain Petitgrain Bigarade EO. Finally, if we use the flower, we can obtain Orange Blossom Absolute (extraction with volatile solvent) and Neroli EO (hydrodistillation).

Major Components :

D-Limonene (75-85%)
Beta-Pinene (≈5%)
Aldehyde C-8 (≈2%)
Limonene Oxide (≈0,5%)
Linalyl Acetate (≈0,1%)
Aldehyde C-10 (≈0,1%)
Aldehyde C-9 (≈0,01%)
Can contain Eucalyptol