Simply pour a few grams into the palm of your hand to see the difference: long, regular strands of a coppery red, where ordinary rooibos comes in shorter fragments. Rooibos Rouge Feuilles Entières Bio is a South African rooibos in long cut, certified organic and sold on its own.

The plant is the same, Aspalathus linearis, a shrub of the Fabaceae family whose needles oxidise after harvest to take on their red colour. It is the cut that changes: longer strands, which release their flavour more slowly in hot water.

The cup gains in clarity. The liquor, a light mahogany, is clear; the taste, fine and woody with honeyed notes, is very gentle, with less power than a finely cut rooibos but greater finesse. At the bottom of the teapot, the strands remain whole and lift out easily.

It contains no caffeine, so it can be drunk from morning to night. Whole leaves prefer very hot water, at 100 °C; allow seven minutes at minimum, ten at most, using 15 to 20 g per litre or 3 to 4 g per cup. Plain, it goes with a honey pancake, a financier or a roasted pear. A little hot milk gives it a rounder texture; cooled, it makes a caffeine-free iced tea of lovely clarity.

Weighed to order in Bordeaux as in Nice, it keeps in an airtight tin, dry and away from daylight, with the care due to a fine leaf.