{"id":132231,"date":"2025-11-13T03:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T03:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/132231\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T03:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T03:00:10","slug":"nzs-only-tea-museum-gypsy-rose-is-closing-and-its-massive-collection-is-up-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/132231\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ\u2019s only tea museum, Gypsy Rose, is closing and its massive collection is up for sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

The collection is more than just cups, saucers and tea leaves, and Hadfield has \u201ccome at the subject of tea from every direction you can think of\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe teapot from Queen Elizabeth II’s hotel room in Gisborne in 1954.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have 1000 stories in here and I know all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to the exact number of items in the collection, Hadfield has lost count since the museum opened in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach week, these parcels would turn up to add to the collection and it just got bigger and bigger,\u201d he said, of adding items he has bought online.<\/p>\n

Hadfield, 68, plans to move to Waipawa and considered shifting the museum to that township, but has instead opted to call it a day. <\/p>\n

\u201cTime is up for me with this now, I have decided to let it go and just be free of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a while I thought that I needed to keep it because it defined who I was.<\/p>\n

\"HadfieldHadfield opened the museum about 2011. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to have something unique in New Zealand – a museum all about tea and it made me special.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m special anyway and I don\u2019t need that to define me anymore, and I think it\u2019s quite healthy to let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has given himself about six months to wrap up the museum and sell the collection in the leased Taradale property.<\/p>\n

He said the journey started after he began collecting \u201call sorts of antiques\u201d with a particular interest in art history, design and social history.<\/p>\n

He soon realised he could not collect everything and turned his focus to one area – tea.<\/p>\n

\u201cTea is very much attached to history.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, with a smile, that running a museum meant he was not considered \u201csome sort of crack-pot hoarder\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

From about December 1, Hadfield will open the museum most days to the public, for people to visit and buy items from the collection.<\/p>\n

He also has a business assembling flatpacks<\/a>, Hawke\u2019s Bay Assembly Services, which he will continue in Waipawa.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The collection is more than just cups, saucers and tea leaves, and Hadfield has \u201ccome at the subject…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[95,43295,12974,6789,21642,90868,2082,90867,90869,185,302,15399,3586,3607,111,139,69,3272,2847,12000,1133,213,27319,810],"class_list":["post-132231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-and","tag-brewing","tag-change","tag-closing","tag-collection","tag-deane","tag-for","tag-gypsy","tag-hadfield","tag-is","tag-its","tag-massive","tag-museum","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nzs","tag-only","tag-rose","tag-sale","tag-sports","tag-tea","tag-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}