Boutique tea emporium Tour de Tea has opened its doors in New Farm, the brainchild of Brisbane sisters and tea connoisseurs Amy and Hannah Little. The boutique is an expansion on the family business, which has been operating since 2009 at a local farmers market.
With a long history working in commercial tea, the sisters want to offer local tea drinkers a more bespoke experience. Tour de Tea offers 54 different varieties of artisanal tea, each handpicked by the Little sisters and packaged with its own specific story of a place – many drawing upon familiar aspects of Brisbane’s scenery and culture. “Every tea evokes a specific atmosphere. We have spent most of our lives drinking tea with a Brisbane backdrop and our aim is to highlight its unique charm,” Hannah says. Amy adds, “Opening our own tea store has been our dream for a long time. In trashy casual jobs and office cubicles, we always found solace surrounding ourselves in tea, plants and books – the smallest objects of comfort and joy. We wanted to create a space for like-minded souls who can treat this store as their sanctuary.”
The Tour de Tea emporium will be one of the first retail tea stores to actively encourage a waste-free option, allowing eco-conscious tea drinkers to acquire their favourite blends with a bring your own container ‘weigh and pay’ system. “We want to provide a way to sustain this daily ritual while endeavouring to reduce its impact every step of the way. We’ve witnessed an immense amount of waste in the tea industry and want to provide the community with an alternative,” Hannah says.
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