At Parterre our philosophy is to cultivate both unusual perfume ingredients, as well as those special ingredients reserved for the finest fragrances.
Our ‘citrus’ plant hunting has led us to Bergamot, Bergamot Mint, Lemon Thyme and over 20 varieties of citrus trees in our Collection.
Bergamot is a small round citrus fruit, a hybrid of lemon and bitter orange from southern Italy. It is synonymous with Earl Grey tea, and our small Bergamot trees produce a number of fruits each year for our trials and cultivation.
Our Run of the River EDP contains two unusual plants that provide a twist on citrus – Bergamot Mint and Lemon Thyme. Bergamot Mint is exactly what is sounds like – a fresh blend of citrus, tea and mint coming from a single plant. It is so ‘volatile’ you can smell its delicious scent from across the gardens in the summer sun. Lemon Thyme is altogether richer and more herbaceous. Of course, its scent is both citrus and thyme but complemented with hints of geranium and orange flower.
We have harvested both of these in mid summer since 2016, using steam distillation to produce their fresh oils before we mature them.
More on our Citrus tree collection another day. But the spectrum of citrus scents emerging from varieties developed over centuries is truly amazing – Buddha’s Hand citron, Citrangequat, Sweet Lemon, Tahitian Lime, Red Lime and so on.
