About us and our love of tea

Tea Leaves came from an idea way back in 1993. Terry, my wife and founder of Tea Leaves, was then looking around to start a new retail career. Then one afternoon we saw a magnificent, novelty teapot in the form of an exhausted tennis player, collapsing into his court side chair and surrounded by a huge jumble of tennis tournament paraphernalia.

That extraordinary teapot had instant appeal and caused so much laughter, it got us thinking seriously about tea, which at that time, appeared to be at the beginning of a popularity comeback. One thing lead to another and at the end of 1994, Terry opened Tea Leaves in a tiny shop in Sassafras, a quaint mountain village in the Melbourne's majestic Dandenong Ranges.

In the following years, tea drinking became fashionable in Melbourne, then in other capital cities. Tea Leaves expanded its tiny retail business and began importing and blending tea for wholesale customers around Australia. We also began an intensive tea and tea culture learning curve, which continues today, involving travel to all the major tea producing countries, to build our tea knowledge and business networks. Even though the business has grown, Tea Leaves Sassafras remains the same quaint little teashop in the hills.

The promotion of tea and tea culture now consumes us. Understanding all the aspects of tea has become our passion. 

In 2003, tealeaves.com.au began selling teas online with our first e-commerce tea website. In 2007, tealeaves.com.au has a new expanded e-commerce website, making our teas and beverages more accessible to tea lovers.

Everything we do at Tea Leaves aims to link customers with teas, tea wares and tea knowledge; our purpose is to understand more about tea, share tea knowledge and sell only the best quality teas available: we hope that the simple pleasure of tea drinking will revive, refresh and improve your well being, as it does around the World.

Thank you
Terry, Dioni, Bren and Staff