Camellia Tea House.

Camellia Tea House is at Via San Lorenzo 310 E/F, in the San Lorenzo district in the north of Palermo. It calls itself a shop specialised in teas, spices and coffees from growing regions around the world, alongside tisanes and fruit infusions, and keeps more than 180 kinds of tea, tisane and infusion on its shelves, plus the coffee, the spices and the accessories. It opens Monday to Saturday from 9:30 to 13:00 and again from 16:00 to 20:00, and closes on Sundays. The same catalogue is sold online and ships by UPS with tracking.

The pure teas come in 50 g bags, each with its water temperature and steeping time. The black shelf runs from Ceylon Highgrown OP and Keemun to a second-flush Assam from the Mokalbari estate, an organic Darjeeling from Ambootia and a smoked Lapsang Souchong; the greens go from Gunpowder and a Shizuoka sencha to Lung Ching from Zhejiang and kukicha. The oolongs are Ti Kuan Yin, a flavoured Milky Oolong and a spiced Ti Kuan Yin blend; there is also a Pai Mu Tan white tea, a Yunnan pu-erh, and Japanese matcha in tins, one of them a culinary grade from Kagoshima.

Much of the catalogue is blends: flavoured black and green teas, rooibos and tisanes, with a seasonal line that at the time of writing includes Red Velvet, Castagne al forno and Un inverno speziato, and several rooibos also sold in boxes of 15 bags. One section is set aside for teas and infusions made to brew cold. Around the tea sit spices and spice blends, coffee, biscuits and chocolate, and the teaware: cast-iron teapots, tea-for-one sets, mugs, cups, infusers, filters and tins for keeping tea at home.