Mornings bring toast, a brioche, eggs, and a cup that smells of hazelnut: Covent Garden Morning is a breakfast tea, designed, Mariage Frères says, for all sunny mornings. Its name is a nod to the tea counter the house keeps at the heart of bustling London, in Covent Garden.

It is a blend of black teas that the house describes as succulent, and which evoke hazelnut. It is the leaves and their blending that give this note: certain black teas, depending on their origin and processing, naturally develop aromas of dried fruit, toasted hazelnut or malt, and it is this vein that the composition exploits. The house's Jardin Premier label appears on this tea.

The liquor unfolds in warm, reassuring tones, rhythmed by generous, velvety flavours, in the house's words. It is amber, round, bracing without roughness; the malt arrives first, full, then the hazelnut rounds it out, and the finish stretches, soft and aromatic. The tannins are present but polished, as befits a morning tea that does not want to rush.

Plain, it wakes you up; with a cloud of milk, which suits it particularly well, it becomes softer, in the spirit of an English breakfast. It accompanies pastries, porridge, bacon and eggs, a weekend brunch, and, in the afternoon, a hazelnut cake. Earl Grey lovers who want a morning without bergamot will find a frank alternative here.

It is available loose, weighed to order in our shops in Bordeaux and Nice, from the 5 g sample to the kilo, in the 100 g iconic tea tin in its gift box, and in a box of 30 round cotton muslin tea sachets, totalling 75 g. The brewing parameters specific to each format appear on its product sheet.