Oranges, along with other citrus fruits, originated in the Southeast Himalayan foothills, spanning parts of India, Myanmar, and China. The word "orange" comes from the Sanskrit word "nāranga," referring to the orange tree. Sweet oranges are a hybrid between pomelo and mandarin, with evidence of their ancient ancestry found in fossils from Yunnan, China.
The spread of citrus began with the citron, reaching the Mediterranean by the 2nd century BC. Sweet oranges were first documented in Europe in 1471, while the sour orange was introduced to the Mediterranean by the 10th century, thanks to Arab traders. Christopher Columbus brought sweet orange seeds to the New World in 1493, where they flourished in the subtropical climate of Florida.
The sweet orange is a hybrid of ancient cultivated origin between pomelo (citrus maxima) and mandarin (citrus reticulata). A fossil specimen from the late Miocene epoch (11.6 - 5.3 million years ago) from Lincang in Yunnan, China has traits that are characteristic of current major citrus groups, and provides evidence for the existence of a common Citrus ancestor within the Yunnan province approximately 8 million years ago.
The first written mention of the sweet orange in Europe is in the archives of the Italian city of Savona, recorded in 1471; the first written distinction between the sweet orange and the sour orange is in a manuscript by Bartolomeo Platina from 1475, written for Pope Sixtus IV. The manuscript is preserved in the Vatican Library.
The self-proclaimed 'original orange soda', Orange Crush, was created in the USA in 1906 by Chicago's J.M. Thompson. Today, Orange Crush is still on sale, matched in popularity by Orange Fanta - which was introduced in 1941 in Nazi Germany as an alternative to Coca-Cola. The breakfast staple 'OJ' was also a reasonably recent 'invention' - an advertising campaign to solve the problem of a glut of oranges in Florida!
Image: Oranges on a tree (c) Creative Commons
