Top tea spots in New Zealand

"What do you get when you combine tea and books? Paradise, obviously. The staff are very patient and are happy for you to smell samples of each of their many, many teas before choosing, and don’t seem to mind if you sit sipping tea and chatting for aaages. There are delicious treats sitting in the cabinet just waiting to be an afternoon snack and you can browse their selection of novels as you sip your tea. It's the best!"

"Harney has an amazing range of teas - pretty much every kind of tea in every flavour you could possibly imagine. Their website means that at any time you’re just a click or two away from having delicious teas delivered to your door, and the beautiful tins they come in make them the perfect gift for the tea-lover in your life."

"So much tea! So many cats! Don’t let the plain exterior fool you, Hulu Cat is amazing on the inside, with its giant comfy couches and lounge chairs and its extensive collection of cat figurines and pictures. They have so many different teas to choose from you’ll have to keep going back to try more. I really like the fruit teas, lychee in particular, but the milk teas are also very popular."