Interview with Nina, founder of Chá Camélia
- Lorela Lohan
- Dec 24, 2025
- 9 min read
From Journalism to Tea Farming in Portugal
Intro
I first visited Nina in September 2021, curious to see with my own eyes what it means to grow tea in Portugal. From the very first moment, I was deeply impressed by the amount of care, patience, and commitment she had put into developing Chá Camélia. Walking through the plantation, listening to her explain the work behind each plant, it became immediately clear that this project was not only about tea, but about values, land, and time.
Beyond her work, Nina is simply a great person — generous with her knowledge, grounded, and deeply thoughtful. We stayed in touch after that first visit, and in 2024, I returned to pick up tea and cheese for my workshop at the Berlin Tea Festival. Once again, she was incredibly available, supportive, and understanding, despite her many ongoing projects.
This conversation is the continuation of those encounters: an honest and touching reflection on her journey, her challenges, and her vision for tea in Europe.
Lorela: Nina, let’s start at the beginning. What was your first encounter with tea, and how did it become part of your life?
Nina: My first encounter with tea was very early — childhood and teenage years — and it feels like a completely different chapter of my life compared to starting Chá Camélia.
In our town, there was a tea shop, and I was fascinated. Nobody in my family was particularly interested in tea, but I started drinking it and discovering different flavours. At first, like many people, I tried flavoured teas — but quite early, I became more curious about pure teas too. I remember the tea shop Die Teekampagne in Germany being among the first I noticed offering pure tea (in this case, directly imported pure Darjeeling tea).
When I started travelling, I would always choose places where I could shop for good tea — northern Germany, London, Paris. Tea slowly “snuck” into my life as a daily companion. I never drank coffee, so tea became my everyday ritual. I built friendships around tea as well — friends who also drank tea.
But honestly, I never imagined I would work with tea.
Lorela: So what changed? What sparked the idea that eventually became Chá Camélia?
Nina: My motivation came from a different place: I knew I would continue living in Portugal, and I didn’t want to keep working for German broadcasting for the rest of my life — especially going back and forth. It’s a distance, and Portugal is not in the centre of Europe.
I remembered the early days of my journalism career: I had this dream that one day I would do something real myself — produce something tangible. Journalism was my dream job, but not forever. I wanted to make something with my own hands.
I didn’t know what, though. It couldn’t be wine — my ex-husband worked in wine, and I didn’t want to do the same thing. Then, during a radio interview with Peter Oppliger (at the time, owner of Monte Verità in Switzerland), everything shifted. He mentioned that the tea plant is Camellia sinensis. I almost destroyed the interview because I got so excited — I live in northern Portugal, the land of camellia trees. He confirmed the climate could probably be suitable, and he gave me my first plant.
That was the moment the “seed” was planted in my head. I left that first plant outside during winter — in a cold corner of the garden — and in spring it was happy.
That’s when the project truly started.
Lorela: Your background is journalism, but there’s also something about soil and land in your story, right?
Nina: Yes — I’m a multifunctional person. I studied geography and social anthropology, so I already had contact with soil through geography. Then I worked as a freelance journalist for the radio and even gave training in Portuguese-speaking countries.
And now, my third profession is a tea farmer.
Lorela: Let’s talk about the early years. How did you source plants, and how did you begin production in Portugal?
Nina: At the beginning, we had some plants from Monte Verità, yes. I also tried to import from Japan — it wasn’t forbidden, but nobody wanted to take the risk of doing something that had never been done before.
So, together with a camellia specialist here in Portugal, we looked into the Portuguese camellia collections — ornamental camellias — and we found Camellia sinensis. From those plants, we propagated using seeds and cuttings. I still have original cuttings from those collections.
Half of our plants are from seeds, half from cuttings — and they’re all sourced here in Portugal, which makes them unique and adapted to our climate. That was probably a good thing.
But it was a huge challenge: we "created" about 12,000 plants. It took about four years of cleaning the land and planting. And then you wait — tea needs around four to five years in the ground before you can have the first harvest.
Lorela: What were the biggest challenges in those first years?
Nina: The biggest challenge was weeding. We are not only organic-certified — we work with biodynamic and permaculture techniques. We don’t kill the soil with plastic layers. So in the first years it’s: weeding, weeding, weeding… and mulching, mulching, mulching.
You’re building healthy soil, trying to help the plants grow, and for a long time, you have no production — no outcome — just frustration and sweat.
But I’m stubborn. I loved the idea, and I knew one day we would “win.” Now we have one hectare in an adult state: the rows have closed, and we only weed on the sides. But when we plant more — which we are planning — the effort starts again.
Lorela: Your connection to Japan is a big part of your story. Why Japan, and how did that relationship begin?
Nina: It started simply because I love Japanese tea. I made direct contact with the Morimoto family, and we built both a business relationship and professional cooperation. We started distributing their teas because, for many years, I wouldn’t have enough of my own harvest — and Portugal needed to “wake up” to what good tea can be, beyond tea bags.
So while I was weeding, I was also doing tastings — to build awareness of high-quality tea in Portugal.
The Morimoto family embraced my project. They didn’t laugh at me. They were excited — and that mattered so much. It wasn’t about competition. They saw that I was doing what they did when they were young. They encouraged me during the moments when I wanted to cry — when my plants were so small you couldn’t even see them through the weeds.
When I visited the Morimoto family, I saw a newly planted field with the same age as my fields — and it looked the same. That helped me believe: this is real. It’s hard, but it’s real. They are still the heart of my project.
Lorela: How has Chá Camélia evolved — both as a tea program and your own production?
Nina: We widened our range because we work a lot with restaurants and menus, so I needed more variety. We also have Portuguese herbal teas — I do a special blend with a local herbal tea producer.
But everything is guided by the same principle: honest organic tea — not just certified, but genuinely organic — from small farms, without big distributors taking the profit while farmers receive little.
For our own production, we started very strictly with steamed green teas — a Japanese approach: do one thing right, do it well. For years, we focused on steamed greens from different harvest moments and different plant materials.
Then in 2022, we launched our first pan-fired green tea, with overnight withering — a step toward oolong, which was my second dream. From the beginning, I said I wanted to produce green tea and oolong only, because those categories are huge.
In 2024, we officially launched our first semi-oxidised oolong — a more honey-colored cup, not all green. And we will continue exploring more styles of oolong.
Lorela: You’ve also developed tea tourism: visits, tastings, experiences. How important is that part of the project?
Nina: It’s one of our “legs” — one of several ways we survive.
Portugal’s tourism has grown massively in the last five or six years. During COVID, it became even more important because people wanted outdoor experiences. Small groups, private visits — it worked well. And we receive visitors from all over the world who somehow heard about us.
We’re also privileged in location: about 30 minutes from Porto and 20 minutes from the airport. It wasn’t planned — the land was simply available — but it helps.
What’s also beautiful is that local people are proud. They come from nearby villages, curious and excited: “We have a tea plantation here in the north? Is that possible?” It’s a good curiosity.
And honestly, education is key. People who come out of the plantation are transformed — they understand the work behind tea. They don’t question the prices. They see that they are fair.
Lorela: Do you see tea culture growing in Portugal?
Nina: Sometimes it’s hard to know if it’s just my bubble — I meet tea people because I’m in tea.
But if I compare 15 years ago to now, there is real evolution. Portuguese people are open-minded — there’s also the historical story of Catarina de Bragança and tea, so there’s openness even if there’s not a strong tea-drinking habit.
When you offer them the experience, they’re grateful and curious. More and more people search for better quality tea.
Lorela: You also started kombucha quite early. How did that happen?
Nina: It began in 2019, when kombucha wasn’t really a thing here. A Brazilian couple contacted me: they wanted to make kombucha at home and sourced tea from me. We discussed which tea would work best, and I told them about the rose petals. They came to visit, started brewing, and they are still our brewers today — we built a partnered kombucha project together.
It’s funny because my ex-husband and I would always taste and say, “This is too sweet — make it more serious.” We were very demanding. One day, they laughed and said, “Okay… we should do a kombucha together.” So we created kombucha in our spirit: in a wine bottle, very low sugar after fermentation, not pasteurised, not filtered, with a second fermentation in the bottle for bubbles and evolution. You have to control it, of course.
Lorela: What’s your honest view on the NOLO (non-alcoholic) market and the use of tea in beverages today?
Nina: You want the honest answer? I went to a non-alcoholic fair in Munich and tasted a lot. I’m interested in cold tea preparations — but I feel sad because you almost never taste tea.
They put “tea” on the label, but it tastes like everything else: juice, spices, flavours. Honestly, many I can’t drink — one sip and I’m done. I don’t like heavy flavour layering.
And for food pairing? I think there are too many flavours which, in the end, are fighting with each other. When I interviewed brands and asked what tea they use, the answer is often just “black” or “green” as if that explains everything. Or “it’s organic.” But where is it from? Which harvest? What quality? I think tea is used on labels because it gives a “healthy” image.
This motivates me even more to focus on our kombuchas — they are the opposite: clean, you can taste the tea, no heavy flavour masking.
Lorela: Running a tea business is complex. What makes it sustainable for you?
Nina: There’s no recipe. In 15 years, I adapted many times — you have to be flexible.
COVID was the biggest challenge, but I was lucky: I had built an online shop about three years earlier, originally as a service for people in rural areas who don’t have access to tea shops. During COVID, without advertising, the online shop exploded — and it stayed at that level.
We do many things: distribution, restaurants, shops, an online shop, visits, and events. It’s a lot, but education through visits is our “secret weapon.” And distribution — because we built it over 15 years — is our safe place. It takes time to build.
Lorela: Finally, what do you hope Chá Camélia becomes in the next five to ten years?
Nina: I see myself with happy plants in a more natural environment — more forest, more permaculture. We’re planting toward a forest garden system. It’s long-term, but I want to move even more toward tea’s natural growing habitat.
I also want to develop more production methods — maybe producing tea for kombucha or other brands, even if it’s challenging. And I want to deepen tea practice in Portugal, connect tea people across the Iberian peninsula — Portugal and Spain — because we exist, but we are scattered. Together, we can create more momentum.
Closing Line
Spending time with Nina — both in conversation and on her land — is a reminder that tea is not built on trends or shortcuts, but on patience, trust, and long-term commitment. Chá Camélia is not only a plantation or a brand; it is a living project shaped by years of care, resilience, and an unwavering belief in doing things the right way.
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