During my visit to Québec City, I stopped by the Camellia Sinensis boutique for a tea tasting and a look at their tea offerings.
Camellia Sinensis has been part of the Canadian tea scene for more than 25 years. The brand began in Montreal in 1998 and has since grown through their tea boutiques, educational tastings and tea school.
Their team has also travelled to tea-producing regions to source teas and build relationships with growers, which gives the brand a strong educational side beyond retail.
The Québec City boutique has rows of tea offerings, teapots, cups and different brewing accessories. There is a lot to look through, from green and black teas to oolong, pu-erh and herbal infusions.
I joined a guided tea tasting during my visit. We started by looking at and smelling the dry leaves before tasting the brewed tea. It was nice to be able to see the change in smell pre- and post-brewing. There were tasting notes for each tea and I appreciated being about to enjoy the teas at a relaxed pace to fully experience them.
I was especially interested to see high-quality matcha sourced from other parts of Asia outside of Japan. I tend to associate matcha almost entirely with Japan, so it was interesting to see how the category has expanded and to learn about matcha being produced elsewhere.
I appreciated seeing their selection of tea cakes too. Tea cakes are compressed tea leaves formed into a solid disc, a format often associated with teas such as pu-erh.
There are plenty of teapots, cups and brewing tools to browse as well. It is the kind of boutique where you can spend quite a bit of time looking through the shelves, especially if you are interested in tea or curious about different ways of brewing it.
Camellia Sinensis was also very much part of my experiences in Quebec City at other MICHELIN restaurants and at the hotel where I was staying. At Tanière³, the two MICHELIN Star restaurant, their tea was served at the end of the meal. I had a similar experience at Le Clan, which has one MICHELIN Star. After a tasting menu, tea becomes part of the final stretch of the meal, and it was interesting to see a local tea company being incorporated into that experience.
I was staying at Monsieur Jean Hôtel Particulier, and Camellia Sinensis teas were also available in my room.
Visiting the shop tied those experiences together and gave me a better sense of the role the brand plays in Québec City’s food and hospitality scene.
Camellia Sinesis
624 Rue Saint-Joseph E, Québec, QC