Bergamot EO

Latin name :

Citrus bergamia

Botanical profile :

Bergamot is the fruit of the bergamot tree, belonging to the Rutaceae family and the Citrus genus.

Geographic origin :

Bergamot is mainly grown in Calabria (100 tons/year), a region in southern Italy, Ivory Coast (15 tons/year) and South Africa.

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 :

Bergamot comes from the bergamot tree. First green then yellow, it is a citrus of about 80 to 200 grams. The harvest, done by hand (fruits are very sensitive), begins in November and ends around the end of January. The bergamots are stored for 2 to 3 days to warm them and soften the zest.
After that, the fruit is put in a sfumatrice to extract the essential oil (cold expression). The sfumatrice works by pricking all the zest of the fruit with needles in order to collect the essential oil and the zest debris. Then these two parts are washed away by a stream of water to a centrifuge. The purpose is to separate the oil from the water and the debris from the peel. Once this separation is done, the essential oil of raw bergamot is collected. The oil can also be obtained by separating the zest of the fruit in a peeler machine and by steam distilling the zest. This essential oil is called ''distilled bergamot '' or ''Cold expressed Bergamot ''.
The cold expression yield is approximately 0.5%.
An extraction with a volatile solvent gives a yield of 4%. The essential oil must be rectified to remove the bergaptenens, which are photosensitizers. This rectification can also be used to isolate terpenes or other compounds from the bergamot.
The oul quality varies according to the harvest months: more floral in November (higher presence of linalool) and cooler in January (higher presence of linalyl acetate). There is also a ''black bergamot '' which is an extraction of the zest of an overripe fruit fallen from the tree during the winter whose zest has become black.

Major Components :

D-Limonene (35-40%)
Linalyl Acetate (25-30%)
Linalool (≈20%)
Gamma-Terpinene (≈6%)
Beta-Pinene (≈4%)
Sabinene (≈4%)