Camellia Rd.

Camellia Rd was established in the summer of 2017 by Darwin and Ricky, childhood friends from the San Gabriel Valley with shared Cantonese-American roots, who had joked years earlier in a boba shop that they should open one themselves. The flagship tea bar is at 8199 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Ste H, in Kearny Mesa. The name is a double reference: Camellia for Camellia sinensis, the plant classic tea comes from, and Rd for road and for the founders' own initials.

The drinks were built on loose leaf from the start — cane sugar and honey instead of syrups, dairy and plant milks instead of powders — and the same leaf is sold over the counter in 40 g and 100 g pouches, all of it single origin from China, Taiwan, Japan, India and Sri Lanka. The 40 g ladder is tight: the India Earl Grey at the bottom, the Sri Lanka Ceylon just above, the sticky rice puer in the middle, and the jasmine green and the floral Tie Guan Yin together at the top. The Yue Guang Bai white is the exception: it comes as a 15 g sample or by 100 g.

It opens every day from eleven in the morning to ten at night, the longest day of any shop in this city guide, so it is the one place here you can buy leaf after dinner. Beyond the bar there is ordering ahead online, a Boba Box to take away, catering for events, merchandise, a wholesale programme, a rewards scheme, a blog with recipes and a newsletter the founders named The Orange Pekoe.