Gentle and sweet: this is how tradition describes the sign of the Rabbit, that of the years 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011 and 2023. In its Thé des Signes collection, Mariage Frères has dedicated a blue tea to it, housed in a lacquered pagoda-shaped tin in meadow green, designed as a lucky charm to wish for a gentle year.

Blue tea is an oolong, a semi-oxidised tea with a golden, velvety liquor. The house has added touches of fresh mint and white currant, wrapped in indulgent notes of honeydew melon and star fruit, and the goji berries that mark the whole collection. Ingredients: blue tea, goji berries, blue flowers, flavouring; the blend may contain traces of nuts.

The cup, with its golden shades, evokes, in the house’s words, the awakening of nature and the scent of a flowering meadow under the morning dew. The mint comes first, fresh without being cold; then the melon and star fruit bring a fruity, exotic sweetness, the white currant a tangy edge, and the goji its fruity accent; the oolong’s velvet binds everything together and keeps the finish round.

It is drunk during the day, plain, without milk or sugar, at lunchtime or in the afternoon, with a fruit salad, a sorbet or New Year biscuits; iced, it is thirst-quenching and keeps its minty freshness. The oolong leaves withstand a second infusion. A ready-made gift for someone born under this sign.

Allow 3 g for 200 ml of water at 95°C and five minutes’ steeping. Thé des Signes, Lapin comes in a lacquered, screen-printed artisanal tin made in France and holds 100 g of blue tea; keep it closed, away from light and strong odours.