Of Shan origin, this wild tea from the Triangle d’Or is made, says Mariage Frères, using a millennia-old method, with hands alone and a wok. Burma, Thé du Triangle d’Or belongs to the Calligraphies du Thé collection, and on its tin the word “tea” is written in Burmese.

It is a green tea with long, twisted young leaves, which the house says recall the fragrances of mountain flowers. It is flavoured with star anise, the badiane, and the ingredients are limited to tea and this anise; the blend may contain traces of nuts. The house’s file classes it among its Jardins Premiers.

The golden liquor offers a sweet bouquet, both aniseed and floral, which the house compares to the freshness of a forest undergrowth. The green tea, worked in the wok, has that lightly toasted roundness of Chinese greens more than the marine sharpness of Japanese ones; the star anise, soft and liquorice-like, settles in without overwhelming it. The finish is fresh, aromatic, a little sweet.

It is drunk during the day, plain, away from meals or with South-East Asian cuisine, a salad, a lemongrass fish. Anise makes it very pleasant iced, and it goes with a fruit pastry or star anise biscuits. It is a tea for the curious, who love rare origins.

It is presented in a lacquered and screen-printed metal tin containing 100 g. Allow 2.5 g per 200 ml of water at 95°C and three minutes’ steeping, as recommended by the house. La Boutique du Thé, official stockist of Mariage Frères since 1999, offers it in its shops in Bordeaux and Nice.