Adore Tea.

Adore Tea was founded in 2006 and is still owned by the family that started it: Nasreen and Aman and their two daughters, Habiba and Amal. The teas come from Sri Lanka, China and Australia, many of them certified organic, and every one is blended and hand-packed at the company's warehouse in Mitchell, in Canberra's north. That warehouse is also where the flagship teahouse and boutique opened in 2023, at Unit 2/2 Dacre Street with its entrance on Hoskins Street: café, tea room and shop in one, open every day from eight. A second teahouse in Woden, at Shop 3/2 Furzer Street in Phillip, carries the same range.

The catalogue runs past 150 teas, and the shop counts 35 awards for them, among them Best Teahouse in ACT and NSW and three Best Blend prizes at the Australian Tea Expo of 2019, for Jamala Rooibos, Tea Trick and Platinum Black. The pure teas sit under the blends: a Ceylon Gold of long OPA leaf, an organic English Breakfast and an organic Assam, Darjeeling second flush, Keemun, Lapsang Souchong and a Golden Monkey from Yunnan; Japan Sencha, Long Jing, hojicha and an Australian green grown in the Kiewa Valley in Victoria; China Oolong, Milky Oolong and a Tie Guan Yin the shop calls the best oolong it stocks; Yin Zhen Silver Needles and an organic Japanese matcha.

Every tea comes in three sizes, 20, 60 and 150 g for the teas and 20, 50 and 100 g for the herbs, with the smallest pack starting at A$ 6, so a tasting flight of six costs less than one tin elsewhere. The teahouse serves a seasonal three-course high tea of eleven items with its teas, a menu of more than fifty dishes and coffee under the Adore Coffee label; the boutique adds teaware from Zero Japan, tea-infused jams and syrups made in house, honey and chocolates. Online orders ship across Australia from Mitchell, free above A$ 70, and the teahouses can be booked for private events.