Talk about a lit­tle shop of won­ders. David and Diane’s brightly col­ored, tastefully-decorated tea house is based on a sur­pris­ingly uncom­mon prin­ci­ple among leaf-peddlers: make it Amer­i­can. Here you’ll find all man­ner of blacks, greens, whites, oolongs, herbals and blends; some organic; all arranged thought­fully by cat­e­gory. The place smells loved.

To be clear, if you’re look­ing for cof­fee, this is not your joint. (We sug­gest Moon’s on Juan Tabo.) But if you’re a sea­soned pro­fes­sional or just dab­bing your fin­ger in the mug, there’s a deep well here, at very rea­son­able prices. Join their unob­tru­sive mail­ing list and get a free sam­ple with your order every month. It brews more than you think!

While there are a few individually-bagged num­bers avail­able, the focus is loose-leaf. Just get­ting into tea, and/or not sure what you like? Stick your nose in one of the tall metal cans. It’s nor­mal prac­tice, and remem­ber, most of your sense of taste comes from smell, so it’s a good indi­ca­tion of what to expect. Sniff around and ask ques­tions. David and Diane’s staff (and David him­self, ‘spe­cially) are game to talk about any and all of it, from the ori­gins of Dar­jeel­ing to the blend ratio in their Moroc­can Mint (they recently started adding spearmint).

And, like any respectable tea shop, they go fur­ther. Elec­tronic ket­tles (that boil to a par­tic­u­lar tem­per­a­ture), tra­di­tional ceramic pots of all sizes, a myr­iad of dif­fer­ent infusers — includ­ing dis­pos­able infu­sion bags — and all the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence to back it up. In 2010 David even trav­eled to China, in search of brews he’d never tried.

Every­thing from the shop’s avail­able online as well, and NMTCo has one of the most use­ful com­mer­cial web­sites we’ve seen from a Duke City local. Every­thing ships, in just about any quan­tity, for wallet-friendly rates.

If you’re look­ing for a fine steep, even a tea latte, Golden Crown Panadería was their first bulk cus­tomer, so just hop next door and order at will. (Jen­nifer James 101, Zohra and Café Giuseppe all serve NMTCo teas, too.)

Last and far from least is cus­tomer ser­vice. David recalled Adam’s name from online sales, and when Adam found a small manufacturer’s defect in his electro-kettle, David insisted he bring back only the defec­tive part, when­ever was con­ve­nient, and to use it at-will the next few days.

You feel gen­uinely val­ued in a place like this. And that’s a pretty fine feel­ing in an econ­omy that’s tear­ing at the seams.