Our promise:

• We price fairly so you have a chance to try some beautiful teas.
• We delivery swiftly.
• We are here to educate you in your tea journey.
• We are always looking for ways to improve. If you have suggestions, please call, message, or email us.

Our guarantee:

• 100% money-back guarantee you will absolutely love your tea.
• You keep the tea.
• We will process your return within 3 business days.
• Refunds exclude shipping.

* If your brew isn't brilliant then please call, message, or email us first. We can usually suggest brewing adjustments to get your tea just right.

Our mission:

1. Offer you awesome teas that are affordable enough to drink daily.

2. Build a company that cares about customers and our ecology.

3. Get you to ditch the tea bags.

Awesome affordable tea.

"I've obsessed over tea for more than a decade. I started Little Dragon Tea for selfish reasons. When we moved to New Zealand, I couldn't find high-quality affordable tea. So, I decided to import the tea I loved directly from farmers. Any tea you purchase from Little Dragon Tea is a tea that I am drinking regularly myself. New Zealand deserves better tea."

-Bob Lajes, founder

 

What makes a tea "awesome"?

Generally, the tea will be whole leaf and nothing more. Great teas don't need additives. Tea that is grown either organically or in a semi-wild state is more nutritionally robust. We will never import a tea that is not either organic or semi-wild. These teas are so healthy and robust that you can brew them at least 2-3 times, if not more. The other factor of an "awesome" tea is how delicious it is. Our teas are delicious. We only purchase teas we will drink ourselves. We are tea snobs so you don't have to be.
 

What does "semi-wild" mean?

We define semi-wild as a tea farm that is minimally managed. The farmers avoid using pesticides, herbicides and manure for fertilisers. They might even let the weeds grow around the farm. We only work with farmers that practice sustainable, natural regenerative farming. It's good for the tea and it's good for the earth.
 

How are your teas so affordable?

We work directly with farmers and a few scouts to lock in the best rates. We do everything we can to keep costs low for you. It's important to us that we all get a chance to enjoy the best tea available while still being affordable enough to drink daily. Sometimes, we might share a tea from our private collection in the store. These will be teas that we absolutely adore but hadn't planned on selling due to cost.

 

Customer and ecology first.

The purpose of Little Dragon Tea is to share awesome tea with as many people as possible. That is why we live by Our promise to you and Our guarantee.

Ecology:

If you've read this far, you know that farming and ecology are important to Little Dragon Tea. This carries through in everything we do. We strive to ensure all packaging is compostable, recyclable, and reusable. Our mailing boxes are recyclable and compostable, or reusable. Our shipping bags are compostable. Our tea pouches are compostable. Our tea tins are recyclable but you'll probably want to keep them. They're quite nice and you can always refill them with your favourite Little Dragon Tea!

Every time you purchase from Little Dragon Tea, you support sustainable farming and family businesses.

Ditch the bag.

Did you know that most of the tea bags available on the market are not compostable or recyclable? Most contain plastics. This means you may be sipping on micro-plastic! Not only are they bad for the environment and the body, but the tea is usually very poor quality. More often than not, the tea in a bag consists of the dust left over from when buyers purchase the whole leaf tea. So, you're not drinking tea, you're drinking tea dust.

 

 

Some tips to get your brew just right

Since you're here, we would like to share some basic tips to help start you on the path to better brewing. This can even help with those nasty little tea bags…

1. Lower temp = less bitter. If your tea gets bitter, brew it at a lower temperature. If you don't have a fancy kettle, add cold or room temp water to the boiled water - usually a 50/50 split.
2. Don’t leave tea in the pot. Whatever you are brewing in, once it is steeped, pour all the tea out. Tea left in the pot keeps steeping. This wastes your tea leaves. If you use a big pot, don't fill it all the way up. Just brew enough to drink in one go, then you also get the benefit of brewing it again and it will still have heaps of flavour!
3. Time is key. Most teas only need steeping for about 30 seconds or so. Add time for additional steeps.
4. "Water is the mother of tea." That's what they say in China. They should know since China is the motherland of tea. If you use filtered water, you will have a better cup of tea. Water quality is one of those rabbit-hole topics so I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Why the name Little Dragon Tea?

Little Dragon was one of the nicknames of actor, philosopher, martial arts instructor Bruce Lee. Tea is 98.5% water. This is what Bruce Lee had to say about water:

 

"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

 

Also, I love oolong teas. Oolong translates to "dark dragon" and Little Dragon is xiaolong so there is a little play among the words in Chinese.