Cinnamon is the inner bark of a tree, rolled into sticks and dried, and one of the spices traded the longest between Asia and Europe. Cannelle Aromatique is Mariage Frères’ traditional scented black tea with cinnamon: nothing but the leaf, the spice and a flavouring, in the great tradition of spiced teas.

The declared ingredients are tea, flavouring and cinnamon; the blend may contain traces of tree nuts. Dry, the pieces of bark can be made out in the dark leaf, and the scent is warm, woody and sweet without sugar.

The liquor is round and spiced. The cinnamon opens warm, in a woody register rather than a sharp one, and the black tea carries it with soft tannins that give the cup its structure. The finish is long and sweet, recalling winter desserts: baked apple, rice pudding, gingerbread.

It is an afternoon tea for the cold season, though it can be drunk all year round. Plain, it goes with an apple tart, cinnamon biscuits or a compote; with a cloud of milk and a touch of honey, it becomes a spiced hot milk, and infused directly in milk it makes a simple, honest chai. It also suits Christmas tables.

Allow 2.5 g per 200 ml of water at 95 °C and five minutes of infusion. Cannelle Aromatique is weighed and packed to order in our shops in Bordeaux and Nice, from the 5 g sample to the kilo, in a pouch designed to preserve its aroma, and should be kept in an airtight tin, away from other spices, whose smell it would otherwise take on.