NZ’s only tea museum, Gypsy Rose, is closing and its massive collection is up for sale

Gypsy Rose Tea Museum owner Deane Hadfield inside the museum in Napier. Photo / NZME

A change is brewing for Napier man Deane Hadfield.

He’s spent the past 15 years collecting and adding items to his quirky museum in Taradale.

But Hadfield has read the tea leaves and decided to close the Gypsy Rose Tea Museum - New Zealand’s only dedicated tea museum - and sell the collection.

Tea lovers will soon be able to pop through the museum and purchase individual items of china, some of them centuries old.

Hadfield’s preference is for a buyer, such as a council, to purchase the collection “in one hit” and ideally open another museum and tearoom.

The collection is more than just cups, saucers and tea leaves, and Hadfield has “come at the subject of tea from every direction you can think of”.

The likes of a teapot used by Queen Elizabeth II during a 1954 visit to New Zealand, a signed picture of Sir Edmund Hillary having a cup of tea on Mount Everest after reaching the summit, and centuries-old china and history are housed in the museum.

The teapot from Queen Elizabeth II's hotel room in Gisborne in 1954.

“I have 1000 stories in here and I know all of them.”

As to the exact number of items in the collection, Hadfield has lost count since the museum opened in 2011.

“Each week, these parcels would turn up to add to the collection and it just got bigger and bigger,” he said, of adding items he has bought online.

Hadfield, 68, plans to move to Waipawa and considered shifting the museum to that township, but has instead opted to call it a day.

“Time is up for me with this now, I have decided to let it go and just be free of it,” he said.

“For a while I thought that I needed to keep it because it defined who I was.

Hadfield opened the museum about 2011. Photo / NZME

“I was able to have something unique in New Zealand - a museum all about tea and it made me special.

“But I’m special anyway and I don’t need that to define me anymore, and I think it’s quite healthy to let it go.”

He has given himself about six months to wrap up the museum and sell the collection in the leased Taradale property.

He said the journey started after he began collecting “all sorts of antiques” with a particular interest in art history, design and social history.

He soon realised he could not collect everything and turned his focus to one area - tea.

“Tea is very much attached to history.”

He said, with a smile, that running a museum meant he was not considered “some sort of crack-pot hoarder” as he was able to share the collection with the community, and he had enjoyed hosting countless groups for a visit with a cup of tea and cake.

From about December 1, Hadfield will open the museum most days to the public, for people to visit and buy items from the collection.

He also has a business assembling flatpacks, Hawke’s Bay Assembly Services, which he will continue in Waipawa.

As for his favourite tea, Hadfield takes his tea black and has a Dilmah premium tea every morning with half a teaspoon of ground ginger.