Brazil (primary — rootstock and fruit), India, Bangladesh
Pyramid
Top
Tangerine peel dipped in lemon juice, with a bitter-green twist. Not a true lime — a mandarin-citron hybrid with orange skin and sour flesh. The peel oil smells brighter and more mandarin-sweet than Persian lime, with a distinct herbaceous backbone that no other citrus delivers at this ratio.
Sharper than mandarin, sweeter than lemon, greener than either. The opening is a bright acid flash — fresh-squeezed citrus peel, zesty and almost effervescent — with an immediate tangerine sweetness underneath that lemon cannot produce. Within minutes, the γ-terpinene asserts itself: a herbaceous, almost thyme-adjacent greenness that separates rangpur from every other hesperidic oil. Compared to bergamot, rangpur lacks the lavender-like linalyl acetate smoothness; compared to grapefruit, it has none of the sulfurous nootkatone bite. The overall impression is of citrus peel left on a warm wooden cutting board — bright, dry, aromatic, with a faint waxy residue.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Bright, sharp, acidic — tangerine sweetness and lemon bite arriving together, with an almost effervescent peel-zest sparkle from the aldehydes (neral, geranial)
After a few hours
After a few hours
The citrus brightness fades as the lighter monoterpenes evaporate. What remains is the γ-terpinene herbaceous note — green, dry, faintly thyme-like — and a clean waxy residue from the heavier terpene fraction
After a few days
After a few days
Negligible on skin — limonene and γ-terpinene are volatile monoterpenes (MW 136) and dissipate within hours. On blotter, a faint, dry, citrus-rind ghost may persist for 24–48 hours
Terroir & Expressions
Indicative 2025 wholesale prices.
The Full Story
Rangpur (Citrus × limonia) is not a lime. Genomic sequencing confirms it as an F1 hybrid of citron (Citrus medica, male parent) and mandarin (Citrus reticulata, female parent) — the same two species that produced the lemon, but through a separate hybridization event. The fruit has mandarin-orange skin, sour citron-like flesh, and a name borrowed from the city of Rangpur in northern Bangladesh. In India it is called gandhraj — king of fragrance.
Chemistry
GC-MS analysis of cold-pressed peel oil from Argentine cultivars (Ferreyra et al., Journal of Essential Oil Research, 2012) identified 39 compounds representing 99.35% of total composition. Monoterpene hydrocarbons dominate at 91.39%. Principal constituents: limonene (57.38 ± 1.09%), γ-terpinene (13.01 ± 0.37%), β-pinene (12.04 ± 0.63%). The γ-terpinene concentration is the signature differentiator — roughly double that of lemon (~7%) and triple that of sweet orange (<1%). This terpene is responsible for the herbaceous, almost thyme-like undertone absent from other citrus peel oils. Minor components include myrcene, p-cymene, terpinolene, linalool, neral, geranial, and β-bisabolene.
Scent Character
On a smelling strip, the expressed oil opens sharper and more acidic than mandarin but rounder and less terpenic than lemon. There is a tangerine sweetness in the first seconds that lemon never offers, followed by a green-herbaceous body from the γ-terpinene. The aldehydic sparkle (neral, geranial) is present but restrained — less insistent than in litsea cubeba. The dry-down is clean, transparent, and slightly waxy — citrus skin without citrus juice.
Use in Perfumery
Rangpur peel oil is a niche material. It does not appear on the standard citrus palette of most fragrance houses. Where used, it occupies the structural position of bergamotor lem on — a top-note diffuser — but delivers a rounder, more mandar in-inflected brightness with that particular herbaceous bridge to aromatic notes like basil, thyme, or clary sage.
This note in Première Peau. Gravitas Capitale · Nuit Elastique · Rose Monotone. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.
In Bengali, rangpur is called gandhraj — king of fragrance. The name predates any Western perfumery interest in the fruit. In Brazil, rangpur (limão cravo, or clove lemon) is far more important below the graft line than above it: by 1995, 85% of São Paulo's 200 million sweet orange trees were grafted onto rangpur rootstock because of its tolerance to the tristeza virus. When a new disease — citrus sudden death — appeared in 1999, it killed over one million rangpur-rooted trees within four years.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: Cold pressing (expression) of the fresh peel yields a pale yellow oil preserving the full terpene and furanocoumarin profile, including phototoxic psoralens. Steam distillation produces a non-phototoxic variant with a slightly flatter character due to thermal degradation of aldehydes (neral, geranial) and loss of heavier coumarins. Yield data specific to rangpur peel oil is scarce in peer-reviewed literature; typical cold-pressed citrus peel yields range 0.3–0.5% by weight. The oil is produced primarily in Brazil (where rangpur, called limão cravo, is the most widely planted citrus rootstock — 85% of São Paulo state's 200 million sweet orange trees by 1995 — and the fruit itself is widely available) and to a lesser extent in India and Bangladesh.
Top-note opener and hesperidic-aromatic bridge. Rangpur peel oil's structural value lies in its γ-terpinene content (13%), which exceeds lem on (~7%), bergamot (~6%), and sweet orange (<1%). This terpene introduces a green, almost herbal quality that allows rangpur to connect citrus accords with aromatic notes — basil, thyme, clary sage — without the jarring gap that occurs when pairing conventional citrus oils with herbs. Limonene (57%) provides the expected citrus lift but requires allergen declarati on under EU Regulati on 2023/1545 above 0.001% in leave-on products. The cold-pressed form contains furanocoumarins and is phototoxic — a constraint shared with bergamot and expressed lime. Steam-distilled rangpur oil loses the phototoxic coumarins but also some of the aldehydic sparkle. The material is niche. Most fragrance houses do not stock it. Where used, it occupies the same positi on as bergamot or lem on — a top-note diffuser — but delivers a rounder, more mandar in-inflected opening.
