Drunk On Tea

Master brewers and mixologists have long been incorporating all forms of caffeine in their creations and the unassuming tea is no exception.

- Joyce Huang

Tell Camellia Cocktail Bar

If there is just one place to visit to see how the worlds of tea and cocktails so beautifully collide, it’s Tell Camellia. Opened just over a year ago, Tell Camellia in Hong Kong shares the rich tea drinking traditions and flavours of tea-producing countries through experimental drinks. Its name is inspired by Camellia Sinensis, an evergreen shrub bush plant native to East Asia, from which tea the beverage is born.

The bar’s curved wooden finned ceiling is inspired by undulating mountain tea plantations and its green colour palette is a reference to the specific shade of evergreen camellia leaves. Various tea-related paraphernalia proudly displayed on the bar’s main back wall, invite conversations about the creation of the bar’s tea-based cocktails.

On the menu are eight different ‘teatails’ (tea cocktails), each featuring a tea from a specific part of the world. The Japan is an ode to the country’s tea-making rituals and pescatarian delicacies; it is made of re-distilled and evaporated matcha and shochu mixed with pumpkin seed, fermented soybean and mint, and dusted with seaweed and rare plankton. The decidedly tropical Sri Lanka is a concoction of Ceylon tea with coconut, basmati rice, Ape Amma wine and rye whisky, served with an edible coral tuile. There is also a selection of Tea & Tonics, where herbal blends and tisanes are blended and redistilled with gin to collect their subtle flavours then made into refreshing tonic drinks.

Fortnum’s X Conker Distillery Cold Brew Tea Liqueur