The cannelé is Bordeaux’s pastry: a small fluted mouthful, caramelised on the outside, soft and vanilla-scented within, that you find on every street corner of our city. Mariage Frères has made it the theme of its Héritage Gourmand collection, a mischievous black tea with the aroma of cannelé, housed in a purple collector’s tin with silver highlights containing 100 g.

The base is a black tea. The declared ingredients are black tea, carob, flavouring, mulberry leaves, sunflower, rice, amaranth and vanilla; the blend may contain traces of nuts. The carob brings a chocolatey, sugar-free sweetness, the vanilla that of the batter, and the grains of rice and amaranth scatter across the leaf.

The liquor is amber and round. The vanilla opens, then the caramelised sugar of the crust, then a creamy softness that the carob extends into the finish. The black tea holds the whole with supple tannins, and the cup remains a tea: indulgent, but without heaviness. To rediscover the taste of childhood, says the house, nothing beats these warm aromas.

It is an afternoon and teatime tea, to be drunk plain or with a cloud of milk, which accentuates its creamy side. It naturally accompanies a cannelé, but also a crème brûlée, a flan, shortbread. In Bordeaux, our customers see it as a gift from the city.

Allow 2.5 g per 200 ml of water at 95 °C and four minutes’ steeping. The metal tin, tightly closed, preserves the fragrance for several months, away from light and odours. La Boutique du Thé is official Mariage Frères stockist since 1999, in its shops in Bordeaux and Nice.