Apple, cinnamon, almond: winter lives in these three words, and Mariage Frères has brought them together in a black tea to evoke the pleasures of Advent and after. Having become far more than a date on the calendar, Esprit de Noël is one of the house’s icons, and the house likes to recall that it is drunk all year round.

The declared composition combines tea, flavouring, cinnamon, almond and apple. Almond is an ingredient in its own right, and the blend may contain traces of other nuts. Around these gentle spices and fruits, the house describes an aroma of tangerine, orange and vanilla: the register of a December kitchen, without heaviness. The house’s file classifies it among its Jardins Premiers.

The liquor is amber, round and warming. The cinnamon opens, sweet; the citrus brings freshness; the apple and almond add roundness, and the vanilla lengthens the finish. The black tea, very much present, holds the whole on a frank structure and avoids the sensation of a liquid dessert: you can feel the leaf beneath the spices.

It is drunk in the afternoon and evening, plain or with a cloud of milk, with shortbread, gingerbread, a Yule log or mendiants. It also accompanies a holiday breakfast, and lends itself to an iced version, unexpected, for those who do not want to wait for winter.

Allow 2.5 g of leaves per 200 ml of water at 95 °C and five minutes’ steeping; in tea bags, one muslin per 200 ml. Esprit de Noël is available loose leaf, weighed and packed to order in our shops in Bordeaux and Nice, from the 5 g sample to the kilo, in a box of 30 round cotton muslin tea sachets of 75 g net, and in a black airtight metal tin of 100 g, presented in its gift box. Store it away from kitchen spices.