Black Tea Absolute from Lake Maggiore
La Camelia d’Oro — Interview with Andrea Anelli
For this new stage of our journey, we met directly with Andrea Anelli, who, together with his wife Orsola, manages La Camelia d’Oro. This beautiful garden at Villa Anelli, located on the shores of Lake Maggiore, is the source of the tea absolute used in our Earl Grey fragrance.
Andrea Anelli, grower of La camelia d'oro
Hello Andrea! How did La Camelia d’Oro begin, and what is its connection to your family history?
Hello Alessandro, in fact La Camelia d’Oro was born from an idea of sustainability. Historical gardens today involve enormous costs — financial, time, energy — and the project was conceived precisely as a concrete response to this challenge: how to transform a heritage that generates expenses into something that also produces value.
My family’s story on this lake begins in 1872, when Carlo Berzio, a Milanese ancestor of mine, chose the shores of Lake Maggiore as a permanent residence and began to build the villa and garden. He had no direct descendants and left everything to his sister, who was married to an Anelli. From that moment on, the property has borne our name. As for me, we are six generations apart.
Today the business rests on four pillars: agritourism hospitality, the camellia collection, the botanical garden open to the public, and agricultural production — tea from Camellia sinensis, cosmetic oil from Camellia japonica, and in recent years, wine as well.
And the Italian Camellia Society?
The Society was founded in 1965 out of the passion of Antonio, my grandmother’s partner. He was an industrialist, he had nothing to do with botany, but he fell in love with the camellias he found in the garden of Villa Anelli and became one of the world’s leading experts on the plant. He collected antique books, imported varieties from abroad, and exchanged them with enthusiasts all over the world.
The goal was twofold: to connect collectors and to preserve a culture at risk of oblivion. In the nineteenth century, the camellia had a season of great fame, with hundreds of varieties cataloged and named. Antonio realized that those names and stories were disappearing, and he took it upon himself to recover them. I took over from him when he passed away in 2000.
Why has Lake Maggiore become a “second homeland” of the camellia?
The camellia comes from Southeast Asia — mainly China and Japan — and has precise requirements: acidic soil, mild climate, abundant rainfall. Lake Maggiore offers all three. The lake moderates temperatures in every season, in some years we reach as much as 2,000 mm of rain per year, and acidic soils are widespread here — in Italy they represent only 10–15% of the total.
There is a nineteenth‑century commentator who wrote that the clear sky of Lake Maggiore resembles that of Japan. It is an evocative phrase, but it expresses something true. It is enough to walk along the shores during flowering season to see it for yourself: camellias everywhere, in private gardens, public spaces, along the banks.
How did the idea of producing tea come about?
Camellia sinensis had always been present on the lake as a botanical curiosity, but no one had ever thought of cultivating it with an economic purpose. I began by collecting seeds from the old specimens in the garden and producing seedlings in the nursery.
What convinced me was an unexpected phone call: a Chinese lady from Padua called me to buy our tea. I invited her to come and see it, but she told me she did not have time — and that she no longer trusted Chinese tea because of pollution. She bought it sight unseen. That conversation made me think.
It also made me think of the old terraces on the lake, abandoned after phylloxera destroyed viticulture in the nineteenth century. Recovering those lands with Camellia sinensis seemed to me a sensible answer: sustainable, local, high‑quality. Today we cultivate three separate plots, between Villa Anelli, Antoliva, and the area towards Mergozzo.
Does the lake’s microclimate influence the quality of the tea?
Yes, and in a very interesting way. Compared to the large Asian production areas, where the monsoon climate guarantees heat and humidity for six continuous months, here on the lake the plant slows down in summer and stops producing new shoots. Since tea is harvested only from the tender shoots, the yield is much lower — about 30% compared to that of Asia. But tea sommeliers tell us that by producing less, you produce better.
Harvesting takes place between April and June, entirely by hand: about one kilo of fresh product per hour, which corresponds to 100 grams of dry tea. The spring shoots — first, second, and third leaf, the latter still rolled up, the so‑called pekoe — give a tea of excellent organoleptic quality.
There is also an aspect that I find particularly fascinating. The plants we cultivate descend from the old specimens in the garden, which have gradually adapted to our climate, our soil, our light. In technical terms, we speak of an ecotype — we could call it the “Verbano Lake Maggiore Variety.” This tea would not be identical if it were grown elsewhere. It is a child of this place.
On an economic level, the limited production translates into prices that are very different from those in Asia: between 500 and 1,000 euros per kilo, compared with 1–3 euros for tea from Southeast Asia. It is a niche product, for those seeking quality, a transparent supply chain, and zero‑kilometre provenance.
How is the leaf transformed into tea?
The process varies by type. For white tea, simple withering is sufficient, with no further treatments. Green tea undergoes steaming and rolling to stop oxidation and preserve the leaves’ freshness. Black tea follows the same steaming step but is then left to ferment and oxidize to its characteristic dark color before drying. The entire process is carried out in-house at our estate.
The fresh leaf has an herbaceous scent, like freshly cut grass. It is the rolling, oxidation and drying that bring out the characteristic notes of tea.
What does the camellia represent for you?
It is a life project as well as a job. The idea is to settle permanently on the lake, leave Milan, put down roots in this area, live it every day. The camellia, for me, is the thread that holds everything together: family history, agronomic research, landscape care, production. It is a plant that demands patience and attention, and that gives a lot back to those who know how to wait for it.