"Although citrus fruits originate from China, Bergamot is Italian. It is a pity that nobody knows who created it by crossing a lemon tree with a bitter orange: this inventor might have been honoured in the same way as the colleague Clément, who invented the clementine. Italian traders managed to sell Bergamot to the Chinese Market to add fragrance to their second-rate tea, which they sold back to the English Market. I am often asked whether I have olfactory preferences. I have always said I do not, wishing to conceal the manipulations I perform on fragrances, as the work of a perfumer is always that of an illusionist. Yes, I have preferences and they vary according to my needs, my desires. I have passing loves, as well as solid, perennial loves, among which there is my love for bergamot. It was time for me to make that official."
The perfumer: Jean-Claude Ellena
"Although citrus fruits originate from China, Bergamot is Italian. It is a pity that nobody knows who created it by crossing a lemon tree with a bitter orange: this inventor might have been honoured in the same way as the colleague Clément, who invented the clementine. Italian traders managed to sell Bergamot to the Chinese Market to add fragrance to their second-rate tea, which they sold back to the English Market. I am often asked whether I have olfactory preferences. I have always said I do not, wishing to conceal the manipulations I perform on fragrances, as the work of a perfumer is always that of an illusionist. Yes, I have preferences and they vary according to my needs, my desires. I have passing loves, as well as solid, perennial loves, among which there is my love for bergamot. It was time for me to make that official."
The perfumer: Jean-Claude Ellena