Earl Grey's secret comes from Calabria

Bergamot is a citrus fruit, Citrus bergamia, too sour to eat. It is grown for the oil pressed from its skin. The Consorzio del Bergamotto puts at least 90 per cent of world production in the province of Reggio Calabria, in a belt from Villa San Giovanni to Gioiosa Jonica, about 1,500 hectares. Twenty thousand tonnes of fruit give roughly a hundred thousand kilos of essence a year.

One detail that gets written the wrong way round almost everywhere: the designation registered in Europe in 2001 is Bergamotto di Reggio Calabria, Olio essenziale. It protects the oil, not the fresh fruit.

And the name on the packet? The tea is named after Charles Grey, British prime minister from 1830 to 1834. How the blend reached him has never been settled. The accounts contradict one another and none of them is documented.

Four more things from the same region:

Nduja, from Spilinga on Monte Poro. Pork and Calabrian chilli, worked soft enough to spread on bread. The chilli is what preserves it. The town holds its festival every August.

Cipolla Rossa di Tropea Calabria, protected as a geographical indication. Sweet enough to eat raw, braided into plaits and hung. The label says one town, the growing area takes in parts of Cosenza, Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia.

Liquorice at Rossano, on the Ionian side, where the root grows by itself. The Amarelli family opened its extraction works, a concio, in 1731. Eleven generations later it is still running.

Peperoncino Festival at Diamante, thirty-fourth edition, 9 to 13 September 2026. Five days, every event free, and a chilli eating championship on the Saturday night.

Next in the series: Sicily, 12 September.