The lemon was almost too big for Vincenzo Crescenzo's grimy palm. With his nails, he scratched the fruit's bumpy skin until the white pith showed through.
"Smell that," he said, as a pungent aroma infused the steamy air of the orchard. It was 9am and Crescenzo had finished work for the day. At this time of year, he begins at five and continues "until the heat becomes too great".
Crescenzo started working in the lemon groves of the Amalfi coast when he was 10. Apart from military service, and a spell as a migrant worker in Switzerland, he has worked in them ever since, growing the sfusato lemon – so-called because, with its pointed ends, it looks much like a spindle, a fuso in Italian.
The orchard, owned by a Roman, is tiny: five terraces with about 150 trees set into a precipitous hillside that falls away to the glittering Bay of Salerno. In a few days, Crescenzo will begin to harvest.
This summer, he can expect around 50 cents (39p) a kilo – a big improvement on last year. Even so, the harvest will not yield a profit. "The owner has had this orchard for 15 years and she's never once got back her costs," he said.
For 73-year-old Crescenzo too, lemon-growing is something of a hobby. Like most of the others who work the orchards above Cetara, he is a pensioner. "Young people don't go into this job," he said. "They can't make any money."
Behind him was one reason why: the ferry from Palermo, lazily gouging an arc of backwash through the azure surface of the bay. The route from Sicily is called the "sea motorway". It offers truckers an inexpensive way to shorten their journey to the markets of central and northern Italy. Many of the lorries aboard were no doubt carrying lemons far cheaper to grow than a sfusato.
Along the coast in Maiori, Carlo de Riso, manager of the area's main sorting and packing plant, describes the growing of this gourmet's delight as "heroic agriculture". The lemons are brought down to his plant on the backs of labourers, each carrying a bag containing 57kg of fruit.
Quixotic might be a better description than heroic, were it not that the sfusato brings with it a vital guarantee. "The lemon farmers here are the sentinels of the environment," said Angelo Amato, vice-president of the consortium for the protection of the Amalfi coast lemon.
With its steep cliffs, the coast is susceptible to landslides. The roots of the lemon trees help to stabilise the ground, and the dry stone walls of the terraces also play a crucial role.
"They are made so that the rainwater which is needed stays, while the rest drains away," said Mario Tozzi, a researcher at the National Research Council (CNR).
The last deadly landslide was two years ago. But there are fears that, if the lemon groves disappear along with their mostly elderly cultivators, the area could see a major disaster like the landslides that killed 161 people in the nearby inland town of Sarno in 1998.
"There are some similarities," said Tozzi. "The old woods above Sarno had been replaced by hazelnut trees with shallow roots."
Several attempts have been made to give the sfusato a future. The 1990s saw the limoncello liqueur, which nowadays absorbs about 10% of the crop.
True Amalfi coast limoncello is exquisite: airily bittersweet. But its success has led to the marketing of imitations, made either with essence or fruit that does not qualify for the protected geographical indication (PGI) the EU has conferred on Amalfi coastal lemons.
A law was passed four years ago to give the farmers subsidies. But no funds have been found to make it effective.
One hope for the future lies with the new, mainly young leadership of the consortium. In May, Carlo de Riso's cousin, an internationally renowned pastry chef, Sal De Riso, was chosen as president.
"I use 5,000kg of lemons a year," he said at his little factory, high in the mountains above the coast. De Riso said one of his aims was to put a squeeze on big firms which make panettone and use minute quantities of the Amalfi coast's lemons so they can put the PGI emblem on their packaging. They were being asked to include a minimum proportion and pay a fee to use the symbol, he said.
The consortium is also working with the CNR to find uses for the huge number of lemons that are discarded. For every 10kg that reach the market, 16-18kg are picked. The leftovers could go into juices, ice cream and even beauty products.
Ultimately, though, said Amato, the future depended on making the business more efficient and drawing in younger people. "With modern irrigation equipment and a minimum of between 7,000 and 10,000 sq metres of land, you can turn a profit," he said.
Of late, lemon-growing on the Amalfi coast has received a boost from an unlikely source. "The economic crisis is bringing people back to the land," said De Riso. "We even have lawyers and engineers who have returned to work the orchards belonging to their families".