The name belongs to the Venetian traveller who brought back from China, in the 13th century, accounts that Europe was long slow to believe. Marco Polo, the unrivalled success of Mariage Frères and, according to the house, the most legendary of its scented teas, also keeps a share of mystery: its composition is secret.

We only know that it combines a black tea with the scents of flowers and fruits from China and Tibet, which give it a velvety perfume that the house describes as unique. The legal ingredient list is limited to tea and flavouring; the blend may contain traces of tree nuts. It carries the Jardin Premier label.

The liquor is round, amber and enveloping. The fragrance opens, fruity and floral at once, impossible to reduce to a single fruit or a single flower: one senses red fruits, an almost candied roundness, then soft flowers that stretch the finish. The black tea, in the background, provides just enough structure for this bouquet to remain a tea; the sweetness, for its part, owes nothing to sugar.

It is drunk from mid-morning until teatime, plain to keep the bouquet intact, or with a cloud of milk that brings out its indulgence. It goes with a brioche, macarons or a red fruit tart, and in summer becomes a highly fragrant iced infusion. It is often the tea one gives to someone discovering the house.

Marco Polo is available loose leaf, weighed to order in our shops in Bordeaux and Nice, from the 5 g sample to the kilo, in a 100 g airtight black tea tin presented in its gift box, and in a box of 30 round cotton muslin tea sachets (75 g). Allow 2.5 g of leaves or one muslin per 200 ml of water at 95 °C and five minutes’ steeping. Store it away from coffee and spices, whose odours would quickly settle into a tea this fragrant.