If there’s such a thing as a temple of tea in Turin, then it has to be Camellia, a welcoming place of refined taste, where everything is given over to the culture of the product, its rites and traditions. At the helm is Ezio Bonino, helped by his sisters Donata and Ombretta. Here you can come for tastings or to buy the finest teas from all over the world, not to mention cups and teapots. The added value of the tasting ceremony – from 3pm to 6pm – is the specific preparation according to the type of tea chosen: oolongs are prepared in a gaiwan (a small cup with a lid) to be able to make more than one infusion with the same leaves, while Japanese green teas are brewed in a kyusu, the iconic teapot with a side handle. Time is obviously important too, varying from 30 seconds for the first infusion of an oolong to four minutes for black tea. Stand-out products in the range are the Chinese fermented teas, especially since they are so little-known, the delicate, floral Taiwanese oolongs, the Japanese sencha fukamushi and sencha asamushi, the African teas from Kenya and Ruanda, the teas from Darjeeling, Assam and the Nilgiri hills in India, the Chinese red, green and white teas, and the Thai teas.
