More than 250 entries arrived for the judges to taste and evaluate, but the winner was Andrew Fenemor, a water scientist and olive grower from Nelson.
He won a trip to London to fine-tune his blend.
"A lot of people were aiming at a back-country feel, a billy-tea element with maybe a hint of smoke in it, and while we enjoyed those, the judges came to the conclusion that too much of those elements were overpowering and lower levels gave a subtle nuance without dominating the whole blend," Stephen Twining, who was in New Zealand recently, said.
He is of the 10th generation of the Twining family to work in the tea business, although the firm has been part of Associated British Foods for more than 40 years.
"One of the things that particularly attracted us to this tea as judges was the fact that it all came together and melded beautifully, a nice round tea but with subtle nuances just outside the realms of a standard breakfast tea like an Irish or English, which makes is so much more interesting and brings that element of New Zealand camping and wildlife into the tea."
The idea for the competition came about over a cup or two of tea, he said.
"New Zealand per capita is among the top 10 tea drinkers in the world and one of my New Zealand colleagues turned round and said `why do we have Irish Breakfast and English Breakfast and no New Zealand Breakfast?'
"And someone else jumped in and said `we could do this or this', and suddenly we ended up with this magnificent idea of having a competition," he said.
Although Twinings New Zealand Breakfast Tea was a limited edition, if New Zealand tea drinkers took it to heart it would be cruel not to keep producing it, he said.
