T2 Tea

T2 began in 1996 as a single store in Fitzroy, Melbourne, founded by Maryanne Shearer and Jan O'Connor, and it now sells online and in shops across Australia and abroad. The Perth store is Shop 4 at 726 Hay Street, on the Hay Street Mall, the pedestrian shopping street in the city centre. It keeps long shopping hours: from 9:30 on weekdays, until 8 pm on Fridays, and from 11 on Sundays, and online orders can be collected there.

Most of the loose leaf comes in the brand's colourful cardboard cubes, 50 or 100 g of tea sealed in a compostable bag, and many of the everyday teas also come as 250 g refills. The classics are all on the shelf: a Darjeeling second flush with muscatel notes, a Lung Ching pan-fired in Zhejiang, the house chai of black tea and spices, and a pu-erh sold as an after-dinner tea. Around them sit the flavoured blends that make up most of the range.

The black tins are a separate range: smaller runs of single-origin teas in light-blocking tins, among them a Dong Ding oolong from Taiwan, Silver Needles buds from the Wuyi Mountains and a gyokuro. They cost more than the boxed teas and are the reason to look past the gift packs. The company designs most of its teaware at its own studio in Melbourne, and sells it alongside the teas, from matcha bowls to whisks.