Milky Blue Caramello(R) and the Comfort of Warm Things

A Mariage Frères tea, cocoa hells, perfume-like aroma, and a winter ritual in Texas

Central Texas isn’t supposed to feel like this. Freezing temperatures, iced-over roads, that strange, hushed quiet when the world slows down because it has to. On days like these, I reach for warmth wherever I can find it — in familiar rituals, in quiet objects, in a cup that asks you to sit still for a moment.

Almost a year ago, friends brought me two black metal tins of Mariage Frères tea from their travels. Both teas were beautiful, but one of them was a completely new experience for me.

The moment I lifted the lid, I was wrapped in a warm, cozy aroma. Something creamy, milky, almost like a daydream. The scent was gentle, intimate, very quiet.

It was Milky Blue by Mariage Freres.

I fell in love with it immediately — without questions or analysis. I simply enjoyed it myself and kept offering it to guests who love tea. It became my joyful tea. Sometimes we don’t want to understand why — we just want to feel.

Of course, the tea eventually ran out. I assumed it would be a long time before I came across it again. And then, almost a year later, I decided to check — just in case — whether it had appeared for sale with shipping to the U.S.

And it had.

Milky Blue Caramello, Milky Blue, Milky Blue Absolu by Mariage Frères

I ordered all three versions directly from France, from the producer’s website: Milky Blue, Milky Blue Absolu, and Milky Blue Caramello. And it was exactly at that moment that I felt the urge to understand:

why is it so magical?

where does this milky aroma come from?

and why does it work almost like perfume?

The scent of a very personal happiness

The comparison with perfume is not accidental. In 2016, Jo Malone released a limited collection of fragrances dedicated to tea — the Rare Teas Collection. The idea was that you could combine “tea” fragrances with additional notes, creating your own pairings. Jo Malone fragrances are, in general, designed for this kind of combinatorial play, and the tea collection explored classic tea pairings with citrus, vanilla — and one unforgettable scent called Sweet Milk.

For me, Sweet Milk didn’t smell so much like sweet milk as it did like the soft, vulnerable, downy crown of a baby’s head. My daughter’s head smelled exactly like this in her first months of life. The fragrance sold out quickly, was never released again, and I, of course, used it up far too fast. It remains, for me, the scent of a very quiet, very personal happiness.

And now — Milky Blue, again.

The same effect: the aroma is not about taste, but about memory. About sensation. About closeness.

What is milky tea

As I began to dig deeper, I discovered that “milky tea” is an entire world of its own. There is a Taiwanese oolong called Jin Xuan (金萱) — a tea cultivar (TTES #12) that, on its own and without any additives, can create sensations of creaminess, butter, warm milk. Not aroma (the aroma is often described as floral), but texture: roundness, softness on the palate. A very quiet, very honest tea. It’s easy to miss if you’re expecting a strong, expressive scent. I haven’t tried it yet and have begun searching. If any of my friends in ATX happen to have a real Jin Xuan to taste, please invite me for tea.

True Jin Xuan rarely makes it into mass markets. It is expensive to produce, difficult to make consistently, and very easy to ruin. For export, aromatic versions are more common — they’re simply easier to sell.

That brings me back to Milky Blue Caramello.

Milky Blue Caramello

Caramello is built on the same oolong base as Milky Blue, but with an added layer of warmth and depth. When I opened the tin, I immediately noticed small brown flakes among the tea leaves — they turned out to be cocoa shell. Not chocolate, not sugar, but the husk of the cacao bean itself.

Milky Blue Caramello by Mariage Frères

The official ingredient list is surprisingly short: tea, cocoa shell, aroma.

There is no milk, no caramel, no sweetness added. The “caramel milk” impression is constructed the way perfume is constructed — through aroma design. Cocoa shell brings a gentle roasted, chocolate-adjacent warmth, and the added aromatic compounds do the rest. The result feels almost like dulce de leche, but without sugar, without heaviness.

The dry leaves smell richer and more expressive than the brewed tea. In the cup, everything softens. The aroma becomes quieter, calmer, more refined. It’s deeply comforting — especially on cold days like the ones we’re having now — and it pairs beautifully with stillness.

Brewing Caramello Milky Bleu by Mariage Ferrer

This is not a tea that tries to imitate a “true Taiwanese milk oolong.” It doesn’t pretend. It exists honestly within its own system of coordinates — a French interpretation, where tea meets memory, aroma, and a very physical sense of comfort and calm.

A note on ordering directly from France (important)

One unexpected part of this experience was the delivery itself. Ordering tea directly from France required me to interact with the FDA Industry Systems — creating an account and filing prior-notice forms so the tea could legally enter the United States.

I had never done this before, and it felt surprisingly bureaucratic for a few tins of tea. But tea is regulated as a food product in the U.S., and imported food shipments sometimes require advance notice before they’re released by customs.

If you plan to order tea directly from overseas, especially from a producer rather than a U.S. distributor, be prepared: you may be asked to complete similar steps before your package is delivered. Sometimes the seller handles this; sometimes the responsibility falls on the buyer.

It’s not difficult — just unexpected.

Despite the paperwork, I would do it again.

Because some comforts are worth waiting for.