Waikato tea estate brews up a style to rival New York and Milan

Zealong's retail and visitor centre The Vista was designed entirely in-house by a small team.

New Zealand's only tea plantation, the Zealong Tea Estate, has been rated among the world's top retail designers as a finalist in a European award which lured such arbiters of style as New York's Museum of Modern Art and Adidas' Milan store.

The retail showcase of the Gordonton, Waikato premium tea exporter was a finalist among 85 entries from 27 countries in the Germany-based 2018 Euroshop Retail Design Award.

Zealong general manager Gigi Crawford said it was especially rewarding to be recognised because Zealong's retail and visitor centre The Vista was designed entirely in-house by her small team.

A recent addition to Zealong's 48ha tea plantation and Tea House high tea restaurant just north of Hamilton, the $8 million investment The Vista is so-called because it overlooks a highly picturesque sea of 1.2 million camellia bushes from which Zealong's certified organic teas are made.

The estate recorded 40,000 visitors last year, most overseas tourists.

Zealong markets and exports a range of premium teas, from its cornerstone pure oolong to black, botanical and more recently a range of heritage blends, all grown to international organic certification standard in the Waikato, and all blended from the one cultivar, Camellia sinensis.

About 70 per cent of the 15-20 tonnes of the handpicked tea produced at the estate annually is exported.

Crawford said Zealong's European premium markets, led by sales to Germany, are as significant to its revenues as China. In New Zealand, Zealong sells to high-end retailers such as Smith & Caughey and Mojo Cafe in Auckland and Wellington, which targets professional career consumers.

About 70 per cent of the 15-20 tonnes of the handpicked tea produced at the estate annually is exported.

Zealong's Waikato-grown green, oolong and black tea were awarded top honours at last year's Global Tea Championships. The company also recently collected natural and organic beverage awards in London and Hong Kong, and a Great Taste award in London.

Crawford declined to discuss Zealong's revenue after more than a decade of export premium quality production but said the company, which literally started from grassroots on former dairying land, with all the challenges and costs associated with becoming world-standard certifiably organic, had broken even and was on the path to profit.

The company is privately owned by Taiwanese national Vincent Chen and family. Chen spent his teenage years in the Waikato and with his father imported 1500 tea cuttings into New Zealand in the mid-1990s after seeing a camellia bush - the source of tea - thriving in suburban Hamilton with no care and in a light bulb moment, thinking the region's environment might support tea growing.

Only 130 plants survived quarantine but they were enough to establish the country's only tea plantation.