Have you been drinking a bit of Calabria without knowing it?

Every time you make a cup of Earl Grey tea, something quietly extraordinary is happening in your kitchen. That distinctive floral, citrusy note — the one that makes Earl Grey taste like nothing else — comes from bergamot oil. And almost all of the world's bergamot comes from a single, narrow strip of coastline in Calabria (the toe of the Italian boot), around the city of Reggio Calabria.

Calabria produces around 80% of the world's bergamot supply. The fruit itself looks like a small, pale yellow orange, and it grows almost nowhere else on earth with the same intensity of flavor — the result of a unique combination of soil, sea breeze and microclimate that exists only here.

For centuries, bergamot was Calabria's quiet secret, and it was used locally in perfume, in liqueurs, in folk medicine, and in the kitchens of people who had always known its extraordinary fragrance. Then Earl Grey came along, and suddenly the whole world was drinking it without knowing where that special something came from.

Now you know. And maybe the next time you make a cup of tea, you'll think of that sun-drenched coastline in southern Italy.