Thé vanille

Ingredients

The tea

• 4 teaspoonsloose black tea
• Mauritian if you can find it
• or a strong Ceylon or Assam
• or 4 tea bags
• 800 mlfresh water

The vanilla

• 1vanilla pod
• split lengthways
• or half a teaspoon vanilla extract
• or 2 teaspoons vanilla-scented tea leaf
• see the note on flavouring

To finish

• 200 mlmilk
• whole milk for the classic version
• or evaporated milk
• 4 teaspoonssugar
• or to taste

Sometimes added

• a small piece of cinnamon bark
• 2cardamom pods, bruised
• a strip of lemon peel
• a few fresh mint leaves

To serve

• small cups or glasses
• gâteau piment, chilli fritters
• napolitaines, shortbread biscuits
• or plain butter biscuits

Directions

1. Start by warming the teapot with hot water. Swirl it around and pour that water away. A cold pot drops the brewing temperature fast. Bring fresh water to a full rolling boil.
2. Use freshly drawn water rather than reboiled. Now prepare the vanilla if using a real pod. Lay the pod flat on a chopping board. Use both the seeds and the split pod. Never throw the scraped pod away.
3. Put the tea leaves into the warmed pot. Add the vanilla seeds and the split pod. Add the cinnamon or cardamom if using them. Pour the boiling water over everything. Cover the pot with its lid straight away.
4. Let it steep for three to four minutes. Do not steep black tea for very much longer. Warm the milk gently with the split pod in it.
5. Let it infuse off the heat for ten minutes. It is worth doing if you have a real pod. Use a fine strainer to catch all the leaves.
6. Remove the pod, rinse it and dry it. Nothing about a vanilla pod should be wasted. Stir until the sugar has fully dissolved.
7. Taste and adjust the sweetness to your liking. Serve it hot in small cups or glasses. Warm the glasses first if they are thin. Hot liquid can crack cold thin glass.

Technique

• Most commercial vanilla tea is ordinary black leaf sprayed with vanilla flavouring, natural or synthetic, rather than blended with real pods. Packets do not always say so. That is simply how flavoured tea is made, and the atlas states it rather than implying every cup contains a pod.
• Infusing the split vanilla pod in the warm milk rather than the tea gives a much stronger flavour, because vanilla compounds dissolve readily in fat. It is the single best trick in this recipe.
• Do not over-steep the tea. Vanilla is a soft flavour and astringent over-brewed tea overwhelms it completely. Three to four minutes is enough.
• A used vanilla pod should be rinsed, dried and reused, or buried in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar. Given what real vanilla costs and the hand-pollination it requires outside Mexico, throwing it away after one use is genuinely wasteful.
• Mauritius has no indigenous population; everyone there arrived from elsewhere. Sweet milky tea came with the indentured labourers brought from India after abolition — more than four hundred thousand people, whose landing place at Aapravasi Ghat is a UNESCO world heritage site.
• Sugar is not a neutral ingredient on this island. The plantation economy that made Mauritius rested first on enslaved people and then on indentured labour, and the atlas records that alongside the recipe.

Substitutions

• Vanilla extract replaces a pod; use about half a teaspoon and add it to the milk rather than the boiling water, since heat drives off the aroma.
• Ready-blended vanilla tea replaces both; brew it exactly as described and skip the pod entirely.
• Evaporated milk replaces fresh milk and is what many Mauritian households use. It gives a slightly caramelised sweetness.
• Any strong black tea works; Ceylon and Assam both suit the milk and sugar well.
• Cardamom or cinnamon added to the pot pushes the drink towards a masala chai character, which some households prefer.
• The tea can be drunk without milk, though that is not the Mauritian standard.

Variations

• Alouda is the other great Mauritian drink, a cold milk drink with basil seeds and agar jelly, sold from street stalls.
• Masala tea with cardamom, ginger and cinnamon is drunk in many Mauritian households alongside the vanilla version.
• An iced version, brewed strong and poured over ice with condensed milk, is sold in cafés.
• Réunion and Madagascar, the great Indian Ocean vanilla producers, make closely related vanilla-scented teas and coffees.
• Some households add a strip of lemon peel or a few mint leaves, which lightens the drink considerably.
• Bois Chéri sells the tea unflavoured as well, and it is drunk plain by those who dislike the vanilla.

History

Tea has been grown at Bois Chéri in the highlands since the 1890s; vanilla-scented leaf became the Mauritian household standard.

Frequently asked questions

What is Thé vanille?

Thé vanille is a drink from Mauritius: black tea scented with vanilla, drunk sweet with milk in the afternoon. Tea has been grown at Bois Chéri in the highlands since the 1890s; vanilla-scented leaf became the Mauritian household standard.

How long does Thé vanille take to make?

Thé vanille takes 5 minutes of preparation and 10 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 4. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Thé vanille?

Yes, within limits. Vanilla extract replaces a pod; use about half a teaspoon and add it to the milk rather than the boiling water, since heat drives off the aroma. Ready-blended vanilla tea replaces both; brew it exactly as described and skip the pod entirely. Evaporated milk replaces fresh milk and is what many Mauritian households use. It gives a slightly caramelised sweetness. Any strong black tea works; Ceylon and Assam both suit the milk and sugar well. Cardamom or cinnamon added to the pot pushes the drink towards a masala chai character, which some households prefer. The tea can be drunk without milk, though that is not the Mauritian standard.

What is the most important thing to get right in Thé vanille?

Use freshly drawn water rather than reboiled. Now prepare the vanilla if using a real pod. Lay the pod flat on a chopping board. Use both the seeds and the split pod. Never throw the scraped pod away.