Coffee and Tea Lovers

Tea Lovers Limited, trading as Coffee and Tea Lovers, has supplied loose-leaf tea and accessories in New Zealand since May 2000, first to the hospitality trade: the company says it provides the total tea requirements of some of Auckland's most innovative tea shops and cafés, brewing equipment included, and it appears on the supplier list of Chapter in Mt Eden. Coffee roasting was added later, and the house Opium Blend won a silver at the 2011–2012 New Zealand Coffee Awards in the flat-white category.

The retail side is four café-and-retail shops: 378 Dominion Road in Mt Eden, Greenwoods Corner on Manukau Road in Epsom, Cook Street in Howick Village opposite All Saints Church, and Amera Place in Botany Downs, all opening early for the coffee and closing mid-afternoon. The catalogue runs past 230 teas and many are listed by garden, Hathikuli for Assam, Nuwara Eliya for Ceylon, Margaret's Hope for Darjeeling, in 50, 100 and 250 g, with the 50 g price the one shown here.

Those 50 g prices are the lowest on any Auckland page: an organic orthodox English Breakfast at NZ$ 8.50, Earl Grey Superior and China Jasmine at NZ$ 9, a Japanese Sencha from Shizuoka at NZ$ 9.50, a Darjeeling Margaret's Hope first flush at NZ$ 11, a Formosa oolong at NZ$ 13, an organic Bai Mu Dan at NZ$ 15 and a Yunnan pu-erh at NZ$ 9. That is the wholesale heritage passed on to the counter: a range wide enough for a tea room, in portions small enough to taste through.