‘Did you know,’ he asked me one Sunday morning when I arrived on the cliff, ‘that the sense of smell is the most spiritually connected human sense?’
‘I can detect a slight orange aroma in your breath,’ he continued, without waiting for my answer.
He gazed out across the open horizon, his quiet voice blending with the sound of the crashing waves below. ‘The first orange seeds were brought to Europe two thousand years ago, via the Silk Road, but the fruits were not sweet.’
‘Ages later, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Portuguese and Genoese sailors brought back the right stuff with them as an exotic delicacy, the early ancestors of the oranges you had for breakfast this morning. Besides the classic freshly squeezed juice, we found many other uses for the golden fruit: wine, gin, brandy and sweet liqueur, side by side with delicious cocktails.’
