Camellia Sinensis started as a coffee-bar idea in 1997, then got derailed—in the best way—by a Prague teahouse and never really looked back. By 1998, a small spot on Emery was pouring fifty teas; within a few years, the project had expanded into a full-on tea store, a course-driven Tea School, and a buying practice that meant getting on planes and meeting growers in China, Taiwan, Japan, and India. The early “late-night lounge” era didn’t last: by the 2000s, tasting and terroir became the point.

Since then, it’s grown into a Montreal reference for serious tea without the stiffness: books, workshops, industry-facing programs, eco-packaging and bike delivery, and experiments like the women-led Tea Studio in India. Even after the Emery teahouse closed in 2020, the operation kept evolving—more production, more distribution, same obsession.